


tu corazón gemelo del mío

by dayswithout



Series: tu corazón gemelo del mío [1]
Category: Prestuplenie i nakazanie | Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25919803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayswithout/pseuds/dayswithout
Summary: Two weeks before Raskolnikov’s sentence comes to an end, Razumikhin takes up breadmaking.a crime and punishment epilogue.
Relationships: Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov/Dmitri Prokofich Razumikhin, Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov/Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikov
Series: tu corazón gemelo del mío [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881118
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	1. Razumikhin

Two weeks before Raskolnikov’s sentence comes to an end, Razumikhin takes up breadmaking. It is a very effective way of burning off all his nervous energy, he finds, something almost therapeutic in kneading the dough and pointedly not thinking about what’s going to happen when their little household of three becomes a household of four.

It is not that he does not want Raskolnikov back — _home_ — of course not. He did, after all, follow him out here, to Siberia. But he feels off-kilter at the thought of it. Like taking a three-legged stool and adding a fourth leg— _No,_ he thinks. _Wrong analogy._

He does not know, is the thing. He does not _know._

He kneads the dough harder, mashing it into the wooden tabletop. He has hardly seen Raskolnikov in the past eight years, receiving letters from Sonya for the first five and then face-to-face once every couple of months the next three. He does not know how to act around him anymore. Back in St. Petersburg, they had had a strange sort of balance between them, but here, everything is different.

Everything is different and Razumikhin does not _know_ and—

He lets out a frustrated sigh. The bread dough is a sticky mess in his hands and he thinks, distantly, that this is not how it was supposed to go (and if that is not some kind of metaphor for his life).

“Whatever did that dough do to you?” Sonya asks from the doorway. Razumikhin starts.

“It went wrong,” he says mournfully. A small smile tugs at Sonya’s lips and she steps into the kitchen properly.

“May I?” Razumikhin gestures for her to go ahead, with dough-covered hands. “You just need to add a little more flour,” she says softly. She takes some and sprinkles it over the dough. “Now try.”

The dough firms up beneath his hands this time, and Razumikhin looks at Sonya in a kind of bewildered awe. In his defence, he has never cooked before, let alone made bread.

“I leave it to rise now, right?” he asks, peering at the flour-coated sheet of instructions written in Dunya’s scrawl.

“Yes,” Sonya says. “Cover it with a cloth and leave it somewhere warm.” Razumikhin goes to get the cloth, then stops, remembering his hands are covered in bread dough. He hears an aborted laugh behind him and turns to see Sonya, with her hand over her mouth, eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement.

They had not always had this relationship, Razumikhin thinks. Back in St. Petersburg, Sonya had been almost terrified of both him and Dunya (though Dunya less so after Raskolnikov’s arrest), and she had brought that fear with her to Siberia at first. To be fair to her, Razumikhin had not known how to act around _her_ either. The woman who had loved Raskolnikov so strongly as to follow him across the country (but then, had they not all?), but not someone who Razumikhin would have been acquainted with in circumstances other than these.

And then they got used to each other. Razumikhin became accustomed to coming into the kitchen early in the morning to find Sonya in a blanket, hands wrapped around a glass of tea, staring blearily at the fire she had lit. He would pour himself tea from the samovar gently simmering by the stove and sit down opposite her. They never really spoke at that time, both of them just waking up to the day, but the silence between them was comfortable, and only grew more so. And eventually Razumikhin realised that he would not change anything in his life for all the gold on earth. This strange little triumvirate, out in the wilds of Siberia, this was his family.

Of course, that is now all about to change. Hence the breadmaking.

“You seem preoccupied,” Sonya says as he washes his hands.

“Preoccupied about what?” he asks.

“I do not know, which is why I am asking,” Sonya replies. She sighs. “Dmitry Prokofych, you cannot honestly tell me you woke up one morning and decided you wanted to learn how to make bread.”

“Why not?” Razumikhin does not look at her as he says this, instead focusing on the bowl of dough and the cloth he is carefully laying over it.

“I was not born yesterday, Dmitry Prokofych.” She pauses, and then asks in a small voice, “Is it about Rodya?” That makes him glance over at her.

Razumikhin wants to reassure her that, no, of course not, but how can he when really, if he thinks about it, it all comes down to Raskolnikov. It always comes down to him.

“It is not… _not_ about him,” he goes for in the end. The look on Sonya’s face tells him that she does not believe him one bit. “It will just be an adjustment,” he says. “It has been eight years after all.” Sonya’s face softens.

“You know he is looking forward to coming home.” She smiles. “He talks about it a lot.” Razumikhin’s throat is suddenly dry.

“Is that right?” he croaks.

“Oh yes,” Sonya tells him. “He wants to see Dunya again, of course, but also what you have done with the vegetable patch. He has a lot of ideas for how to get the most produce out of it.”

“Of course he does,” Razumikhin says with a soft laugh. “Did you tell him about the trouble I have been having with the soil? Or are you content to let him believe me a bumbling fool.”

“He would never think you that,” Sonya protests, but Razumikhin can tell from the gleam in her eye that the matter of the soil had been conveniently forgotten about in that particular conversation. A silence falls between them.

“So, how long am I supposed to leave this dough to rise?” Razumikhin asks abruptly. It is a transparent attempt to change the topic and, by the way Sonya’s eyes narrow, he knows it has not gone unmissed. But she lets him have it.

“Check on it in an hour,” she says.

*

Six hours later, Razumikhin remembers the bread. In his defence, he had got wrapped up in a particularly fascinating treatise on the systematic sound change of Germanic stop consonants that he was supposed to be translating. He is startled out of his reading when he hears Dunya shriek from the kitchen. He puts down the papers and rushes into the kitchen to find… his bread dough everywhere, spilling out of the bowl and onto the table.

Okay, everywhere is maybe an exaggeration but it has certainly risen more than he had anticipated. Dunya turns to him with a look on her face that asks, very clearly, just _how_ he had managed to get this wrong. Razumikhin grimaces sheepishly.

“I forgot,” he says. Dunya rolls her eyes, but it is fondly (she is, by now, used to the capriciousness of Razumikhin’s mind).

“You might still get something out of it,” she tells him. “Split it into smaller loaves and you can put it in the oven.” Razumikhin does as she directs. It does not take long, but when he has finished he remains in the kitchen, watching Dunya as she starts preparing dinner.

“If you are going to stay, you can slice up some vegetables for me,” she tells him, not even glancing in his direction. Like mornings with Sonya, this is something that has slowly grown between him and Dunya over time. They do not have what people might term a usual kind of marriage — anything but, in fact — so what is one more oddity to add to the rest of them. Besides, Razumikhin thinks that if he learns how to make bread successfully in the next two weeks, Dunya might let him do more than slice vegetables. Yes, he is very much aware he is looking for distractions.

Of course, given how his first attempt with the bread has gone, the prospect is looking less and less likely. So, for the meantime, vegetable-slicing will have to suffice.

“Ah,” he gasps as the knife nicks his finger as he presses down. It is only a shallow cut, but bright red blood is welling in it already. Razumikhin raises his hand to his mouth and sucks at the wound.

“Oh, Mitya,” Dunya sighs. “What am I going to do with you?” Razumikhin shrugs and tries to smile around the finger still in his mouth. Dunya tugs his wrist and he lets her pull his hand towards her so she can examine it. “I think you will live,” she says, a quirk to the corner of her lips. “Wait here, I will get something to wrap it up in.” She turns to leave, then glances back. “And do _not_ touch anything.”

“Ha,” Razumikhin says dryly and Dunya gives him a split-second grin from the doorway. He watches idly as the cut wells again, squeezing at the edges until he feels a sharp pinprick of pain. The redness of his blood makes him think of Raskolnikov, oddly. Of the jagged red of his cheeks all those years ago in St. Petersburg, when Razumikhin had riled him up just enough to get him ranting about whatever it was he was fixated on at the time.

He misses those times with an abrupt yearning. Back when things were simpler, or at least seemed as such. This sudden longing leaves him off-balance. Not once in the past eight years has he let himself really look back to the past — there is no going back, after all — but now, with change coming— He stops that thought in its tracks. It is no more worth worrying about future events he cannot control than past events he cannot change, he tells himself.

He glances down at his hand to find two drops of blood on the tabletop below. He has been squeezing the cut hard enough that his knuckles are white and a third drop is tracing the same path as the previous two, over the pad of his finger and onto the wood. Dunya is not going to be pleased. He grimaces and tries to wipe away the beads, but they have already stained the surface.

“I leave you alone for two minutes,” Dunya says from beside him. “Come on, give me your hand.” Razumikhin lets her wrap his finger in a bandage in silence. When she has finished, she directs him to sit in the corner and not to touch anything. “I do not want you injuring yourself again just because you cannot focus today,” she tells him.

It is testament to just how unsteady his thoughts have made him that he sits down at the table without another word. Dunya looks at him a little worriedly. She seems taken aback by his sudden acquiescence. “Are you alright?” she asks. Razumikhin stares at her for a moment before jerking out of whatever reverie he is in.

“Yes, yes,” he reassures her. “I have just been a little preoccupied today, is all.”

“I can see that,” she says. She picks up the knife and starts where Razumikhin left off with the vegetables. “About anything in particular?”

“No, just work,” Razumikhin lies, grateful that her eyes are fixed on the job at hand and not on him, because he can never manage to lie to her face.

“Oh, are you having difficulty with a translation?”

“Not just yet,” he says, glad for the introduction of a safer topic. “I have not read it through fully, so we shall see.” Dunya hums an agreement. From outside the door, they hear Sonya’s footsteps walking up the path.

“Hello!” she says as she opens the door. A cold gust of air fills the kitchen momentarily and Razumikhin revels in the feel of it on his skin. Sonya removes her shawl and drapes it over the back of a chair. “Can I help you with anything, Dunya?”

“You can chop up the meat I got from the butcher,” Dunya says, gesturing to the parcel on the shelf to the right of the sink. “My usual helper is sadly unable to do his part this evening.”

“Oh, Mitya, what did you do now?” Sonya asks, unwrapping the meat.

“ _Now?_ ” Razumikhin says indignantly. “What do you mean ‘now’?” Sonya gives him a look and he slumps, resting his arms on the table. “Okay, okay,” he says, glancing up at her from beneath his lashes. “I may have accidentally cut myself while chopping the vegetables. But it was only a small cut!”

“Uh huh...” Sonya sounds sceptical. “And how did the bread go?”

“It is in the oven right now!” He pauses as what he has said registers. “How long has it been in? It should be done soon, shouldn’t it?”

“Take a look,” Sonya suggests.

As Razumikhin gets up to do just that, Dunya says, “Ah ah, I do not trust you not to burn yourself by accident today. I will look.” Razumikhin is about to protest, but the waft of blackish smoke that billows out of the oven when she cracks it open puts paid to that. His heart sinks.

“They do not look _totally_ inedible, Dmitry Prokofych,” Dunya says, the tone of her voice betraying her uncertainty.

“Oh, great,” Razumikhin says wryly. Dunya takes the tray out of the oven and places it on the table. The bread rolls are not quite burnt to a crisp, for sure, but they are a good way towards being there.

It is safe for Razumikhin to say that he has not had the best of days.

“I am sure you will get it right next time,” Sonya consoles him.

*

Day two of Razumikhin’s Great Bread Experiment dawns without fanfare. Following the, uh, _limited_ success of his first attempt, Razumikhin decides to go back to the drawing board. That is, the recipe. Next to Dunya’s careful script, he scrawls, _do not leave to rise for six hours_ , and _fifteen minutes only!!!_ , then sits back and taps the pen against his bottom lip in thought.

The problem yesterday had merely been forgetting about the thing, not, ostensibly, any issue with the ingredients. He failed on a process level, not a constituent parts level. So what he really needs to do is make sure he has got the process down. Which prominently involves _not_ forgetting about the dough.

So all he really has to do is make sure he is in the kitchen the whole time and does not get distracted.

He has got this.

(He thinks at least.)

Maybe he should take the day off making bread.

Sonya knocks on his door, breaking his thoughts. “I am visiting Rodya this afternoon,” she says. “Would you like to come?”

“Uh,” he starts, taken a bit aback by the question. “I have— my translation is—”

“It is okay if you do not want to,” Sonya says gently. Razumikhin thinks from the look on her face that she might know something (though what it is, _he_ does not know).

“Maybe some other time,” he says eventually. “I have to perfect my breadmaking skills before he gets home, after all.” He tries to inject something upbeat into his voice, false as it may be, and he is rewarded by the corner of Sonya’s lips ticking up in a smile.

“Of course,” she says gravely. “You must be better than him at something, after all.” It takes a second before the insult registers with Razumikhin.

“Hey!” he says indignantly, but Sonya is already leaving, closing the door behind her with a quiet laugh. “That is _not_ why I am doing this,” Razumikhin mutters to himself.

In truth, he does not know exactly why he decided to take up breadmaking in particular. It had been a whim, of sorts, driven by a strangely restless energy. Breadmaking had seemed, on the surface, as good a distraction as any. It certainly had nothing to do with Raskolnikov.

(Besides the fact that the whole uneasiness and finding an activity in the first place was on account of Raskolnikov’s release approaching, but Razumikhin does not want to talk about that.)

He sighs and scrubs at his face. He will be glad when this is all over and Raskolnikov is back, he thinks. This feeling of disquiet will dissipate.

It must do.

*

A week before Raskolnikov’s release, Sonya comes home with news. “He thinks we should marry,” she announces as they are all eating dinner together. Razumikhin almost chokes on his food, but manages to disguise it, somehow.

“Oh, Sonya!” Dunya cries. “What wonderful news.” Razumikhin knows her well enough to recognise a certain falseness to her tone.

“Marriage,” he forces out, and if he sounds hoarse, he thinks he covers it up well enough. “Well.” He seems to have run out of words, for all that his job is to find them. Neither Sonya nor Dunya appear to notice, thankfully, apparently too wrapped up in the idea of a wedding.

“Did he say how soon?” Dunya asks. “We will need some time to organise everything, of course.”

“He only said that we ought,” Sonya tells her. “I believe he had not thought beyond that.” She turns to Razumikhin with a wide smile on her face. “He asked that you would be witness for him.”

The smile that Razumikhin gives her in return feels horrifically fake, stretching awfully at his face. “Of course,” he manages. “I can think of no greater honour.” The lie sours in his gut. He looks down at his plate, and finds that his appetite is gone.

He retires early that evening, citing a headache. He is not entirely sure they believe him, but they let it go without comment.

This news should settle him, he thinks, surely. It is a sign that everything is going to be alright when Raskolnikov comes home. So why does it leave his stomach in a kind of turmoil? Why has it, if anything, worsened his disquiet?

It is just _Raskolnikov_.

He can feel, with a dreadful kind of certainty, that sleep will not come easily tonight. There is too much going on in his mind for that. He thinks, momentarily, of going back to that translation that he is partway through, but he does not know if he will be able to focus.

“Oh, Siberia,” he sighs. If he were back in St. Petersburg, he might go out to a bar. Replace the buzzing of thoughts in his head with that of alcohol. Here, there is no such pastime.

He lies back on his bed and thinks about trying to sleep. Outside the window, he hears the soft call of a bird — perhaps a cuckoo, he thinks — the only noise in an otherwise silent nightscape. It almost sounds as if it is saying his name: _Razumikhin, Razumikhin, Razumikhin_.

“You are imagining things,” he mumbles to himself. The cuckoo chirps again. _Razumikhin._ It echoes in his head, turning over and over, becoming less bird and more human. More Raskolnikov.

With a jerk, Razumikhin gets out of bed. _That is enough,_ he thinks. His heart rate has skyrocketed and, distantly, he wonders if his hands are shaking or whether that is another thing he is imagining. “Pull yourself together, Dmitry,” he mutters. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath.

The thing is, if he truly admits it to himself, this is not the first time this has happened when it comes to Raskolnikov. That was back in St. Petersburg, when he had turned up on Razumikhin’s doorstep, after months of silence, pale and gaunt.

Maybe it is just the idea of change, precipitated by Raskolnikov’s arrival. Yes, he thinks. It makes sense. Raskolnikov is an agent of… of _metamorphosis_ in Razumikhin’s life, thus it is only natural, this feeling of unease.

Right?

But the restlessness does not abate, has not abated since he first heard about the wedding that evening. He paces the length of his room once, twice. Still it does not leave him. He wonders if he has enough alcohol in his study to get blackout drunk, just so he can get some sleep, but dismisses the idea almost as soon as he has had it. He does not want either Sonya or Dunya finding him like that.

And then suddenly his room is too hot, too stifling, and he is breathless. His pulse flutters at his wrists — he can feel it, like butterfly wings — uneven and jagged. He stumbles over to the window and cracks it open. A flurry of snowflakes blows in on a cold wind, and he rests his forehead against the windowpane, feeling the coolness of it on his skin. Slowly, his pulse evens out, returns to its normal pace.

He feels exhausted, wrung out. He cannot last a week of this feeling.

So he goes to make bread.

The kneading of the dough calms him, and he matches his breaths to the pattern of _fold and knead, fold and knead._ This time, he does not leave it to rise for too long (although, now it seems not to have risen all that much). He tries to plait the dough like he has seen Dunya do, but his effort comes out as some misshapen lump. No worries, he reasons. It should still taste alright.

As he waits for it to cook, he starts another loaf, letting the fold and knead of it brush away his thoughts until his mind is blissfully occupied only with the dough.

Around five o’clock, taking his fourth batch of bread out of the oven, he starts to feel tired. His eyelids begin to droop shut almost against his will.

And then the next thing he is aware of is waking up to Sonya peering over him. For having slept head pillowed on his arms on the kitchen table, he feels surprisingly well-rested. “What time is it?” he asks blearily. His jaw cracks with a yawn.

“Just gone midday,” Sonya tells him. “We did not want to wake you.” She hesitates, glancing clearly at the bread Razumikhin is surrounded by. “Are you sure you are okay, Mitya?”

With a sheepish look at the table, Razumikhin turns to face her. “I just had some trouble getting to sleep,” he says. “That is all.” Sonya still looks concerned, and she cups a gentle hand against his cheek.

“You would tell me if there were anything wrong,” she says softly. “Would you not?” A lump forms in Razumikhin’s throat and his smile feels wobbly.

“Of course I would,” he lies.

*

That afternoon, Razumikhin goes for a walk. It is cold and the sun is low in the sky, shining in his eyes. The crunch of frozen leaves is the only sound that breaks the white, snow-coated silence. When Razumikhin breathes out, his breath coalesces in the air in front of him. Within a few minutes, his cheeks are stinging with the cold.

He took this walk for two reasons. One, so that he could get out of the house and away from Dunya and Sonya’s suffocating concern (ungrateful as he knows he sounds). Because he cannot tell them that their reason for happiness is what is driving this mood. He will not tell them that. And two, so that he could get out of his head. Hopefully. Granted, a walk on his own with nothing to distract him from his thoughts may not be the best way to go about that, but it was worth a try.

 _God,_ he thinks. Why can he not just get Raskolnikov off his mind?

Behind him, a cuckoo chirps.

“Oh, will you just _shut up!_ ” he cries. His voice echoes in the silence, and he is pretty sure Dunya and Sonya back at the house could have heard him. “Great,” he mutters to himself. “Now you have resorted to yelling at birds.” He tips his head back and stares at the sky. A flock of geese flies overhead.

Everything here is so peaceful and yet Razumikhin is _not._ He is not and he has no idea what to do about it.

He could visit Raskolnikov himself before he gets out, maybe. After all, it has been a good few months since he last went. Mostly because he has been ( _scared,_ a voice provides) _busy._ He has been busy. Perhaps seeing his friend would help.

 _Yes,_ he thinks. _That is it._ Suddenly light, as though a weight has been removed from his shoulders, he spins on his heel and sets off towards the prison, quite forgetting that it is likely to be closed to visitors at this hour.

“Dmitry Prokofych!” he hears someone call out as he reaches the main path. He turns to see Ludmila Vasiliyevna Sidorova, the widow, shuffling her way towards him. Ludmila Vasiliyevna’s husband had been imprisoned for stealing from someone very powerful, by the way she told the story, and she had followed him out to Siberia. But her husband, being already old and frail before his sojourn in prison, had died soon after release. Ludmila Vasiliyevna had not had the money to journey back west, nor the family waiting for her besides, so she had stayed. Now, she runs a sort of boarding house, for those released convicts who have no one for them in Siberia.

“Ludmila Vasiliyevna,” Razumikhin greets her. “It is good to see you.”

“You are headed to the prison?” she asks unceremoniously. “Only, I have just come from there and they have closed up for the night.” Razumikhin’s stomach sinks.

“Oh,” he says. “I had quite lost track of the time.” He is suddenly at a loss what to do next.

Ludmila Vasiliyevna seems to recognise this for she says, “Walk with me a while, will you not, young man?” Razumikhin offers his arm for her to take, but she waves him away with a gesture of her cane. “I may be old, Dmitry Prokofych, but I am not so old as to yet need your aid in walking.” Chastised, Razumikhin drops his arm with a sheepish smile.

“Forgive me, Ludmila Vasiliyevna. Sometimes my upbringing overcomes me.” She looks at him with a spark in her eyes that says she knows he is teasing her. She raps her cane on the ground, and sets off.

“Come along,” she calls back to Razumikhin, who is somewhat taken aback by the pace at which she has moved. “I have errands to run.”

Razumikhin hurries after her.

*

It turns out that Ludmila Vasiliyevna’s “errands” really only are one: the procurement of a bottle of vodka (at quite a cost). With a glance at Razumikhin’s face, she says, “We all have our vices. And besides, it gives the men something to celebrate with.”

“Who were you visiting today?” Razumikhin asks, out of curiosity.

“Your boy,” Ludmila Vasiliyevna says, and Razumikhin could swear his heart stops right there and then. He almost chokes on the breath he gasps in. “Rodion Romanovich,” she continues, oblivious to Razumikhin’s plight. “He is being released soon, is he not?”

“Yes,” Razumikhin forces out after a moment. “Next week, I believe.” He pauses, then asks, “Why did you visit him?”

“Oh, I visit them all before they are released,” Ludmila Vasiliyevna says, as if this is not some big revelation on her part. “Give them some advice about getting back used to the outside world. I have had so many of them come and go, I feel I can offer that, at least.”

“Of course,” Razumikhin murmurs. They have reached Ludmila Vasiliyevna’s little cottage now, and he looks for something to say, to bid her goodbye.

“Will you not come in?” she asks, before he can find it. “You look like you could do with some of this.” She waves the bottle of vodka.

“I should not…” he tries, but she scoffs.

“Of course you should. Just the thing after a walk in the cold.”

So Razumikhin lets himself get pulled into Ludmila Vasiliyevna’s house. It is a small house, cosy, but one might almost feel claustrophobic at times. He knows the downstairs rooms can accommodate up to seven people (and Ludmila Vasiliyevna has, from time to time, had need of that space), but looking at it now, it seems impossible to imagine.

Ludmila Vasiliyevna wanders into her kitchen and takes two glasses down from the cupboard. Into each, she pours a liberal helping of vodka, one of which she hands over to Razumikhin. And then she tips her glass back and swallows. Razumikhin does the same, and savours the burn of the drink in the back of his throat. Ludmila Vasiliyevna takes his glass and pours him another.

“You have had some shock, I can see,” she says, gesturing for him to drink again. Razumikhin is confused about what shock she is referring to, but he drinks all the same. Ludmila Vasiliyevna takes down a jar of pickles from the shelf. “Sit, sit,” she says, placing the jar on the table with a thump. “Eat, I made these myself. None of Varvara Ivanovna’s cheap tricks.”

Ludmila Vasiliyevna and Varvara Ivanovna’s feud is legendary in the village. No one is quite sure how it began, except for those involved, and no one is quite brave enough to ask either of them. It is said that Varvara Ivanovna, the grocer’s wife, insulted Ludmila Vasiliyevna’s famed pelmeni recipe, a Sidorov family secret, passed across generations. Days later, Ludmila Vasiliyevna heard someone in the street praising Varvara Ivanovna’s own pelmeni, when the woman had previously had no such recipe to speak of. It remains unclear how Varvara Ivanovna got her hands on Ludmila Vasiliyevna’s recipe, but the ill-feeling between them was such that everyone in the town took sides implicitly.

Thus, Razumikhin, being a friend of Ludmila Vasiliyevna, is not permitted in the grocery store, for fear of dismemberment.

Such are the trials of life in the village.

Razumikhin takes a pickle from the jar (more through fear of saying no to Ludmila Vasiliyevna than an actual desire to eat one). The sourness of it makes him suck at his teeth, but it is a good sourness, the kind that sharpens on the roof of his mouth. Ludmila Vasiliyevna is looking at him expectantly, so he says, “They are excellent, much better than Varvara Ivanovna’s.” Then he has to add hastily, “Not that I have tried hers,” because a suspicious look passes over her face. She gives a contented hum.

“Are you feeling better now?” she asks. “Pickles are just the thing for when you are not feeling well.”

“Much better, thank you, Ludmila Vasiliyevna,” he says, and it is not a lie. Something about the vodka and the pickles and just being around Ludmila Vasiliyevna has settled him. There is no longer a faint buzz of anxiety running through his blood.

Ludmila Vasiliyevna pours them both another shot of vodka and takes a pickle for herself. “Now,” she says. “Tell me about it.” Razumikhin hesitates at that.

“About what?” he dissembles.

“You know what,” she tells him, with a disapproving look. Razumikhin glances away.

“I just—” He stops and makes a flapping sort of gesture with his hand. “I do not know,” he admits after a moment. “Rodion Romanovich is coming home soon.” That statement does not really explain a thing, but Ludmila Vasiliyevna nods like it has told her everything she needs to know.

She hums. “It can be hard,” she says, biting into a pickle, “when someone comes out, for those who are waiting just as much as those who are released. It is an adjustment.”

“But why is it only me who is having this trouble?” Razumikhin asks. “Both Avdotya Romanovna and Sofya Semyonovna are excited to have him home, while I find myself…” He pauses, not wanting to show the widow quite how much he is affected. “Fretful,” he lands on. The look on Ludmila Vasiliyevna’s face says he has not fooled her.

“Perhaps they are just not showing it, as you are also,” she says, shrugging. “Every individual deals with events differently, Dmitry Prokofych. There is no shame in that. Tell me, what in particular worries you.”

For a moment, Razumikhin thinks of telling Ludmila Vasiliyevna about the roiling feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he thinks about Raskolnikov. About the breathlessness that overtakes him. Instead, he says, “It has been eight years, Ludmila Vasiliyevna. I know he is not the same person as I knew in St. Petersburg, of course I know that. But what if I am, and we no longer fit together, or I’m not, and that brings its own problems. What if I start to resent him for bringing us out here.”

“He did not bring you out here, though, did he?”

“No, no, I do not mean it like that. I mean…” He sighs. “I do not know what I mean.”

“You are worried that, for whatever reason, you may come to hate him.”

“Yes,” Razumikhin admits quietly. “And that in doing so I would hurt Avdotya Romanovna and Sofya Semyonovna.” _And lose them all,_ is implied. Ludmila Vasiliyevna is quiet for a while, as if thinking something over.

“You know what he said to me when I saw him today?” she asks eventually. Razumikhin shakes his head. “He said much the same thing as you have just now. That he worries you might come to hate him. That he thinks you might already, for you have not visited him in a good few months.”

“That I might already?” Razumikhin cries, unable to help himself. “No, never!” Ludmila Vasiliyevna gives him a satisfied look.

“I think,” she says softly, “that you may have your answer to whether you might hate him right there.”

Razumikhin considers this, prods at what he just said for any hint that he might not have been speaking entirely truthfully. “That is not to say I never could,” he says carefully.

“Of course not.” Ludmila Vasiliyevna waves a hand. “But I have no doubt you will head it off at the pass.” Razumikhin must admit he is less convinced of this than she is, but he’ll take the faith she has in him. He has little enough in himself from time to time.

Outside, the sun has set almost completely, giving the landscape a dim, grey cast. Razumikhin can just about see wisps of cloud scudding past on a breeze. As he glances away from the window, his eye catches on the clock.

“I ought to get going,” he says regretfully. “I am likely missed. And I have a long-standing appointment helping Avdotya Romanovna to prepare supper.”

“You will take the jar of pickles back with you, of course,” Ludmila Vasiliyevna tells him. “And give lovely Sonya my regards; I know she enjoyed the pirozhki I sent her.” Razumikhin knows for a fact that the last pirozhki they ate came from Varvara Ivanovna’s counter at the grocery store, but he does not say a word. Sonya must know what she is doing.

“Thank you, Ludmila Vasiliyevna,” Razumikhin says as he retrieves his hat from the coathooks. “You have been most helpful.”

Ludmila Vasiliyevna waves his gratitude away. “It is what I am here for,” she says. “Any time you need advice, you come to me, understand?”

*

Moonlight glints off the frosted grass. A gentle breeze brushes against Razumikhin’s skin. He is outside, but he is not cold. He recognises the landscape, but also does not. Ahead of him, it is like the garden of their house, here in Siberia. When he turns to look behind him, it all seems foreign.

A large oak tree stands in that direction, bare of leaves, and a figure stands beneath it. Razumikhin is far too far away to make out who it is, yet he somehow knows with a certainty that it is Raskolnikov. He starts towards the tree.

Underneath his feet, blades of grass crunch. He is walking, and yet seems no closer to the tree and Raskolnikov than he had been initially. Frowning, he ups his pace.

The landscape passes him by increasingly rapidly, faster than it ever could if he were merely walking. But the tree gets no nearer.

He stops.

“Rodion Romanovich!” he calls. The figure looks back over its shoulder, as if in acknowledgement of his cry. Razumikhin steps forward a single pace and suddenly he is there, underneath the tree and directly in front of Raskolnikov.

He looks exactly the same as he did back in St. Petersburg, Razumikhin realises, his face so achingly familiar. His eyes are sharp on Razumikhin’s own, lips curled into a smirk, as if he knows something Razumikhin does not.

“Rodya,” Razumikhin whispers.

Raskolnikov says nothing, but his hand rises to Razumikhin’s face and, gently, gently, brushes along his cheekbone. It leaves a hot trail as it goes. Razumikhin shivers, though he is not cold. Raskolnikov drags a finger down the spine of Razumikhin’s nose, further, over his lip, catching briefly on the bottom one, and coming to rest on his chin.

Razumikhin’s breath hitches in his throat. Almost powerlessly, he tilts towards Raskolnikov, who opens his mouth and—

Razumikhin wakes up.

For a moment he is disorientated, still expecting to see Raskolnikov stood in front of him. But he is not outside. He is lying on his bed, covers kicked to the floor in the night. The house is filled with the sort of late night silence that floods in after something has broken it.

Razumikhin sits up and slides off the bed. The floor is cold beneath his feet, and he picks up a blanket to wrap around his shoulders. He slips through the hallway towards the kitchen, padding softly, bare feet on wood.

When he reaches the kitchen, the stone slabs are frozen against his feet and he hisses at the feel of them against his skin. Dunya, sat at the table, looks up. “Sorry,” she says softly. “Did I wake you?”

Razumikhin shrugs. “I do not know what woke me.” He sits down on a chair and tucks his feet up under the blanket.

“Bad dream?” Dunya asks. Razumikhin has the sudden irrational thought that she can knows what he was dreaming about.

“No,” he says carefully. “At least, not one that I can remember.” Dunya hums absently. “How about you? What has you awake?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dunya says in a way that suggests she does not want to talk about this. “Too much going on in my mind.”

Razumikhin hesitates, then broaches the topic. “Is it about your brother?” The way Dunya’s eyes flick up to meet his in surprise answers that question. “I spoke with Ludmila Vasiliyevna today,” he continues. “She said sometimes the people waiting for someone to come out of prison find it just as difficult to adjust when they do as that person themselves.” He looks down at the wood grain of the table as he speaks next, running a fingernail along a seam. “I have also been a little worried, to tell you the truth.”

In the silence that drifts between them following his statement, he wonders what Dunya is thinking.

“Thank you,” she says eventually. “I had thought it was only me.” She reaches a hand across the table and rests it on Razumikhin’s own, stilling its movement. Razumikhin glances up and gives her a slightly wobbly smile. The relief is evident in her face and he turns his hand over to grasp hers, resting his other on top.

It is moments like this where he is filled with love for her. Theirs is not a conventional marriage, by any stretch of the imagination. For one, they do not even share a marriage bed. Back in St. Petersburg, they had attempted to consummate the union, but it had turned into such a farce that neither of them will dare mention it ever again. Razumikhin knows he does not love Dunya as a husband ought, not really, but they are on the same page in that regard. Plenty of (embarrassing) conversations after that night have seen to that.

They are more companions than husband and wife.

As he is thinking this, something bothers at the back of his mind, something about how clear the table is. How clean it is, no flour dusting its top. Then it registers.

“Wait, where did all my bread go?” he asks, pulling his hands back. Dunya looks sheepishly down at the table.

“I think you forgot to add the sugar or the yeast, Dmitry Prokofych,” she says. “It was very hard and did not rise very much.”

“I definitely added the yeast,” Razumikhin protests. “I remember doing it.”

“It was also very salty,” Dunya tells him. “We tried some at lunch, while you were out.”

It occurs to Razumikhin, very suddenly, that he cannot remember, when making this bread, whether he reached to his right (salt) or left (sugar) at the point where he needed to add the latter. “Oh no,” he says, in a voice replete with horror. “I think I put extra salt in instead of sugar.”

He buries his head in his arms on the tabletop, catching sight of the mirth in Dunya’s eyes as he does so, hearing her laugh softly.

“Do not worry, Dmitry Prokofych,” she says, patting his arm consolingly. “I am sure you will get it right some day.”

*

Raskolnikov comes home on a sharply cold day, sun shining weakly in a bright blue sky. Dunya and Sonya go to meet him outside of the prison gates, while Razumikhin waits at home, helped by Ludmila Vasiliyevna in preparing food for the celebration. Not that you could really call this a celebration as such, Razumikhin thinks, because only a handful of people will be there, and mostly men Raskolnikov met in prison who were released before him. But either way, Sonya is sure Raskolnikov will appreciate it, and what Sonya says goes.

They have just placed the last plates of food on the table when Raskolnikov enters, Sonya and Dunya behind him. It is an exceedingly good thing that Razumikhin has just put down the plates, he muses, because seeing Raskolnikov stood there would probably have caused him to drop them. As it is, he finds himself frozen in place, statue-like.

A hesitant smile plays across Raskolnikov’s lips as he waits for Razumikhin to work out how to move again. “Are you not going to greet me?” he asks, and Razumikhin thinks he hears a waver in his voice. That is what finally jolts him into action, that waver. He strides over to Raskolnikov and wraps him in a tight hug. From the way Raskolnikov’s arms come up around him, he is as full of relief as Razumikhin himself in that moment.

Suddenly Razumikhin is eight years and thousands of miles away and nothing has changed between them.

Raskolnikov’s body is warm against his, though his nose burns cold pressed into Razumikhin’s neck. Razumikhin thinks he might hear a hitch of Raskolnikov’s breath. He wants, selfishly, to never let go. Eventually, though, he has to pull away. And if Raskolnikov’s eyes are a little reddened, well, he will not say anything.

“Hello,” he says, a little uselessly. Raskolnikov laughs and — oh that is new, the skip of his heart when he hears it.

“Hello,” Raskolnikov replies, quite solemnly. Razumikhin finds himself speechless, looking at Raskolnikov, as though he cannot quite believe that here he is, alive and well and _free._ He is saved from having to find something to say by a knock on the door.

“That will be our guests,” Sonya says, heading out into the hallway.

There is only a moment until they no longer have any sort of privacy, and Razumikhin spends it drinking the sight of Raskolnikov in. “I am glad you are here,” Raskolnikov tells him quietly, and then there are hands pulling Raskolnikov into them, greeting him with shouts of welcome, and Razumikhin is left on the outskirts of the mob.

“That was not so hard, was it?” Ludmila Vasiliyevna says, sidling up to him.

“No,” Razumikhin says. “No, it was not.”

Of course, three hours later and he is somewhat regretting that he had not the chance to talk to Raskolnikov properly before all this started. He has hardly had a minute to say hello (again) to the man, he is so monopolised by the guests. Not that Razumikhin should be feeling the slightest bit jealous here; it is, after all, Raskolnikov’s release party. It is just that… that he was Raskolnikov’s friend _first._

Okay, so he is a _little_ jealous.

And okay, so maybe he is sitting on a chair in the corner, sulking. Not that he will admit that to anyone, least of all Sonya when she comes over.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

“Just a bit tired, is all,” he says.

“Are we not all,” she sighs, sitting down on the chair next to him and resting her head on his shoulder. “I am so happy to have him back,” she says softly, so softly that Razumikhin barely catches it. He takes her hand and squeezes it gently.

Across the room, he catches Raskolnikov looking at them, something that may be akin to a fond look on his face, but Raskolnikov does not do fondness, so it cannot be that, Razumikhin reasons. Whatever it is, he glances away to talk to someone and it is gone.

The gathering does not wind down until late, late enough that Sonya and Dunya are curled up together on a sofa dozing. Raskolnikov occupies another of them, once all the guests have gone. Razumikhin bustles around the kitchen, clearing away and washing up, until he can delay no longer.

There is only Raskolnikov in the room when he enters now, apparently having dropped off to sleep in the time Razumikhin has been in the kitchen. Razumikhin pauses at the threshold, taking the time to look at Raskolnikov properly now Raskolnikov is not looking back. He seems healthier here than he has in a while, a happy flush to his cheeks, so peaceful as he rests. Razumikhin is loathe to wake him, but he also knows that he will not sleep comfortably on the sofa, and an irritable Raskolnikov in the morning would make for an irritable household.

“Rodion Romanovich,” he whispers, leaning in close and resting a hand on Raskolnikov’s shoulder to shake him gently. “Wake up.” Raskolnikov’s eyes blink open blearily, and a soft smile spreads across his lips.

“Mitya,” he murmurs and—

 _Oh,_ Razumikhin thinks. _Oh, that is what this is._

He sees Raskolnikov’s lips moving, saying something more, but he cannot hear him all of a sudden, ears filled with the rushing of his blood. A frown crosses Raskolnikov’s face and he raises a hand to touch his knuckles carefully to Razumikhin’s cheek.

“Dmitry Prokofych?” Razumikhin hears and he jolts back into himself.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, sorry, tired.” He does not think he is making any sense, but Raskolnikov nods like he is. He pulls back to give Raskolnikov space to stand, but not far enough it seems, for he finds himself face to face with him, only an inch or two between them. Raskolnikov is enough taller than Razumikhin that his eyeline falls squarely on Raskolnikov’s lips.

He takes a step back and almost stumbles over his own feet. Raskolnikov’s hand shoots out to catch at his elbow. “Careful there,” he says, soft and low, and a strange spark of something shatters through Razumikhin’s blood.

He sucks in a sharp breath, and tries to step away, but his feet will not obey him. Raskolnikov is right there, close enough that Razumikhin can feel the heat of him. He wants to tilt towards him, to share that warmth, but, with an effort, he stops himself.

“Bed,” he says, nonsensically, turning away abruptly. Raskolnikov’s hand drops from his arm.

“Yes,” he says, and his voice sounds strange, faint and far away. “Of course.”

Razumikhin feels, very suddenly, as if he has made a terrible misstep. Something has gone wrong but he has no idea what. “Yes,” he repeats uselessly.

He leads Raskolnikov into the hallway and up the narrow stairs to what is to become his bedroom. “Here,” he gestures. And then there follows an awkward beat of silence. “Well,” he says. “Good night then.”

Raskolnikov gives him a tired smile, and Razumikhin wonders if his feeling of making a mistake was all in his imagination. “Good night,” Raskolnikov says softly, and closes the door.

For a second, Razumikhin does not move. There is an odd sort of tugging sensation in his chest, a yearning for something, but he does not know what. He wants to knock on the door, to see Raskolnikov’s face again, almost as if to reassure himself that this is not a dream, he really is home.

But he does not.

Instead, he pivots and walks across the landing to his own room.

*

Within a week of Raskolnikov’s return, Razumikhin is ready to never have to hear a word about weddings or marriages ever again. It was not even this bad when he got married himself, he thinks. He cannot begrudge Sonya or Raskolnikov this happiness — he never could — but that does not mean it is not shining a harsh light on his lack of it.

Not that he is _un_ happy as is, but, since that night, he has been restless, full of something he cannot (or does not want to) name. He has taken to going for long walks, spending lengths of the day out of doors and away from the happy couple. He knows it has been noticed, because Dunya keeps shooting concerned looks his way when they convene for dinner.

“You have not made any bread recently, Dmitry Prokofych,” she mentions one night. Razumikhin is suddenly, irrationally, certain that she knows exactly why he started making bread in the first place.

He tries to affect a careless tone when he replies, “I have not had quite as much time recently to try.”

“You will remember to add the sugar next time though, will you not?” Dunya asks. There is a spark in her eye that tells him she is teasing. “It does not rise without it.”

“I thought the yeast made it rise,” Razumikhin asks, confused.

“It is the combination of the two,” Raskolnikov interjects. “The dough will rise on yeast alone, but more slowly. The sugar speeds it up.”

“Since when did _you_ become an expert on the matter?” Razumikhin cries.

Raskolnikov shrugs. “There is not a whole lot to do in prison,” he says, and that puts paid to the conversation for a while.

Later, while Razumikhin is helping Dunya clear away the dishes, she turns to him and asks, “Are you truly alright?” She looks so worried that the words Razumikhin is about to say die on his tongue. “You are not ill, are you?” she says when he does not respond immediately. “Dmitry Prokofych…”

“No, no,” he reassures her hastily. “I am not ill.” He pauses, and sighs, pressing his hands to the table and ducking his head. “If anything,” he says quietly. “I am... heartsick.” He doesn’t look at her as he says this, though he senses her moving close to him.

She rests a small, warm hand on his and squeezes. “Rodya?” she asks. Razumikhin glances up sharply.

“How did you know?”

“Mitya…” she says softly, a smile in her voice. “You have been acting strangely for the past few weeks, and then when Rodya came home…” She tails off.

“Am I really so obvious?” Razumikhin asks.

“No,” Dunya tells him immediately. “No, you are not. I just noticed because…” Now it seems it is her turn to pause and look for the right words. “Because I recognised it. I feel that way too,” she says in a rush. “About Sonya.” There is a look of defiance on her face, as if Razumikhin might possibly object to this statement. As if he has any room to object.

It surprises a little bark of laughter from Razumikhin though. “Oh, what a marriage we have,” he says. The expression slides off Dunya’s face as she laughs too, a flash of relief in it. She leans into Razumikhin, resting her forehead on his shoulder. He brings an arm up across her back and holds her close.

“What a pair of fools we make,” she murmurs. Razumikhin hums an agreement.

They stand there, tilted into one another, Razumikhin’s thumb tracing a path up and down Dunya’s back. Then there are footsteps in the hallway.

“Oh,” Raskolnikov says from the doorway. “Sorry.” His voice has an odd ring to it. Dunya has pulled away now, leaving a coolness along Razumikhin’s side. “I just came to get something to drink,” Raskolnikov explains awkwardly. “I can leave.”

“No,” Dunya says. “It is fine. The glasses are in the cupboard above the sink.” Raskolnikov enters the room hesitantly, as if he still thinks he interrupted something. The way he does not look Razumikhin’s way prods at his heart and Razumikhin wants, suddenly, to tell him just how mistaken he is.

There is no way he can do that without exposing himself as well, so he keeps quiet.

Raskolnikov shuffles around the kitchen in silence, before leaving abruptly, glass in hand, still without a glance to Razumikhin. In all this time, Razumikhin has not moved an inch from where he is stood, but now, he makes some vague gesture to Dunya and then follows in the same direction as Raskolnikov.

In the hallway, he hears Raskolnikov’s footsteps trace a path into the sitting room, hears Sonya’s voice say something to him, and instead of joining them, he turns on his heel and out into the night.

*

Razumikhin is not so dramatic as to go for a long walk in the dark on a night as cold as this, but he will make his way to the end of the garden, hidden from sight of the house, for a moment to think. He knows what has driven him here, that same restlessness that has been plaguing him since before Raskolnikov came home. He does not want to confront it, but he thinks he might have no choice.

There are three facts.

One. Razumikhin is in love with Raskolnikov.

Two. He may have been for quite some time.

Three. Raskolnikov is marrying Sonya.

It follows, therefore, that Raskolnikov _loves_ Sonya, and that Razumikhin’s feelings are utterly and wholly unrequited.

 _So,_ he thinks. _Now you have that out the way, you can start getting over it. You can learn to live with it._

*

The date of Sonya and Raskolnikov’s wedding is set for three weeks’ time, and Razumikhin thinks it might be the slowest three weeks that has ever been known to man. He does not mean to sound so curmudgeonly; it is only that his friends’ happiness is a sharp contrast to his own lack of it. _You were supposed to be getting over this,_ he reminds himself, late one sleepless night.

But saying he will get over it is easier than doing it and every time Raskolnikov smiles at him his heart leaps and his breath catches.

It is getting annoying, to tell the truth.

Most of the preparation for the wedding is done by Sonya and Dunya, with Raskolnikov providing the occasional interjection. As such, Razumikhin finds that he is mostly left to his own devices. He spends days on his latest translation — even after it is finished, he goes through it once, twice more. Anything to give his mind something to do that is not just thinking.

The solution, clearly, would be to go back to making bread, but the kitchen is occupied most days by Sonya and Dunya sorting out what to serve at the wedding reception. So, instead, Razumikhin goes for a walk.

It is getting warmer now, though you could hardly tell. The long winter is starting to come to a close, the summer months beckoning. The frost still crunches under his feet, but less sharply than before. A bird chirps above him and he glances up to see a flash of its wing, and then it’s gone.

Instead of walking into the village like he normally might, Razumikhin decides to trek across the fields in the other direction. Out that way is just vast expanses of nothingness, and Razumikhin has heard tell of many a prisoner who, making their escape, froze to death on that land.

Okay, so maybe this is not the best idea, to go wandering out here, without telling anyone. But he is not going to go far — he can find his way back easily enough.

And besides, when he gets out there, a mile or so away from the village, the landscape stretches out before him, leaves him feeling breathlessly small. It is like no other sensation; it reminds Razumikhin that, for all his own problems, he is but a speck in this vast world.

It is only when the sun starts to go down that Razumikhin realises he has been out for a lot longer than he intended. The light is rapidly fading as he turns and begins to hurry back to the village. With the setting of the sun, the temperature drops suddenly, and Razumikhin curses the way he lost track of the time. It is not a hard route back home — he did, after all, do little more than walk in a straight line — but it is a long one, and Razumikhin is steadily losing sensation in his toes.

He goes faster, hoping that it will help him warm up. His breath comes in pants, steaming out into the air in little clouds. When he finally reaches the outskirts of the village, he can hardly place one foot in front of the other, so cold they are, and he stumbles a few times.

Eventually, he comes to their house. The windows are lit up by candlelight, and he can see Raskolnikov laughing with Sonya and Dunya in the kitchen. His hand fumbles on the doorknob, fingers numb and stiff. Someone must have heard his efforts, because the door opens to reveal Raskolnikov.

“Dmitry Prokofych,” he says, almost surprised. “Where have you been?” He grasps Razumikhin’s hands as he comes in, hisses at their frozen touch. “You are like ice.” Razumikhin lets himself be led into the warmth of the kitchen.

“Mitya!” Dunya cries, rushing forward. “Look at you, oh, Mitya.”

Frankly, Razumikhin does not think he is _that_ badly off, but something about the looks on their faces keeps him from articulating that.

And then when his legs all but collapse under him, he thinks, idly, maybe he _is_ that badly off.

The next thing he is fully aware of is being covered in blankets, every one stripped from their beds to wrap around him. He is curled up on a sofa in the sitting room, a steaming glass of tea on the table in front of him. “Sorry,” he says hoarsely, still feeling bleary. His fingers and toes are tingling as blood slowly seeps back into them. Every now and then, he shudders with cold, but that is good, he knows that is good. “I did not realise it had got so late,” he tries to say, but he is not sure how coherent he manages to be.

Dunya grips his hand in both of hers, and he relishes the sting of her hot skin against his. “You and your dreaming, Mitya,” she whispers, pressing her lips to the back of his hand. “Next time, I am coming with you.”

“Sorry,” Razumikhin mumbles again. Dunya runs her thumb across his knuckles as he starts shivering again.

“Rodya,” she says quietly, looking over her shoulder. Obviously, they have discussed something beforehand because Raskolnikov comes over without a word, sitting down beside Razumikhin and wrapping him in his arms.

Razumikhin is too drowsy to really make sense of it, but Raskolnikov is a heavy warmth by his side, seeping through the layers of blankets, and he lets himself relax into him. _Just this once,_ he thinks. _Just this once._

*

He wakes up the next morning to find himself still on the sofa, slumped against Raskolnikov. Sometime in the night, he has kicked off a couple of the blankets, and someone else has lain one to cover the both of them. Still half asleep, Razumikhin lets himself revel in this for just a moment. He is warm and content. He never wants to move.

Raskolnikov shifts beside him in his sleep, mumbling something incomprehensible. It sounds a little like ‘Sonya’, and a rush of cold spreads through Razumikhin. Of course this was too good to be true. Of course.

So he pulls away, slowly so as not to wake the other man. “Good morning,” Sonya says softly from the doorway. “How are you feeling?”

“More like a man and less like an icicle,” Razumikhin replies. “Thank you, for last night.”

“Mitya,” Sonya says, like she is disappointed in him. “We are _family._ You do not have to thank me.” She bites at her lip, as if she wants to tell him something, then she seems to change her mind. “Come on,” she says. “I am sure you are hungry. I made some vareniki especially for you.” She disappears from the doorway and Razumikhin gets up to follow her.

At the threshold, he looks back at Raskolnikov, still asleep on the sofa. _Enough,_ he thinks. _Enough._


	2. Dunya

On Sonya’s wedding day, Dunya stands a few feet away from the altar, watching as the woman she loves marries her brother. Her heart thunders in her chest, drowning out even the priest’s voice. Sonya, glancing up at Rodya, looks more in love than she ever has before, and Dunya feels like every atom of her body wants to be pulled inexorably towards her.

That, of course, is impossible.

Dunya takes a deep breath, trying to steady her heart. When she releases it, it sounds hitched, like she is about to cry. She is _not_ about to cry.

Next to her, Mitya reaches down and grasps her hand, squeezing it. She presses back, grateful.

The candles that Rodya and Sonya are holding flicker slightly as a breeze winds its way through the room. Earlier, when the priest had slipped the ring onto Sonya’s finger, it had almost slid all the way off again. Part of Dunya hopes, a little spitefully, that that was a sign.

Mitya releases her hand, and Dunya realises that the priest is lifting a gold crown over Rodya’s head for him to grasp. Then it is Sonya’s turn, Dunya’s turn to take the crown and keep it aloft. She has to stand close to her to do so, so close that Dunya can feel Sonya’s warmth, smell her skin. She wants to lean into the heat of her, bury her face into her neck. At the edge of her awareness, she hears the priest continue his liturgy, but she is filled up with _Sonya, Sonya, Sonya._

Sonya leans forward to receive the communion wine from the priest and Dunya goes with her, as if attached by a string. She wants, with a sudden desperation, to be the one stood next to Sonya now, not behind her.

When the priest grasps Sonya and Rodya’s hands to lead them away, around the altar, Dunya is half a step behind, focusing not on the ceremony, but on the nape of Sonya’s neck. _Come on, Dunya,_ she thinks to herself. _Get it together._

They go round once, twice, three times. When they stop, the priest begins to speak again, and Dunya struggles against the urge to let her mind drift. The man’s voice is a soothing low hum, and her arm is beginning to ache from being held up for so long.

She feels a tug at the crown in her grip and releases it, so the priest can present it to Sonya to kiss. He says something more, and then Sonya and Rodya are walking away and, for one desperate moment, Dunya wishes Sonya would look back at her.

But she does not.

Dunya lets her eyes drift shut in something like exhaustion and listens to the singing that echoes through the small church. One moment, she thinks. One moment and then the rest of their lives. She wants to lean into Mitya, let him take some of her weight. She knows he would.

But she does not.

And then Sonya and Rodya are walking back down the aisle, flicking each other such happy glances that Dunya feels a coil of guilt build in her stomach.

Who is she to even think about denying them such happiness?

*

As they are leaving the church, a gust of freezing wind envelops them, and Dunya gasps with the prickling cold sensation it leaves. She shudders, and Mitya wraps an arm across her shoulders, pulling her in close to share his warmth as they follow after Sonya and Rodya. His thumb drags across her arm absently.

“We are a pair of fools,” he murmurs, and Dunya laughs softly, despite herself. She leans into him, rests her head in the crook of his neck, even though it leaves them more stumbling their way than walking.

“I do love you too though, Mitya,” she says. “You know that?”

“Of course I know,” he tells her. “I could never doubt it. And I love you as well.” She hums in acquiescence, closing her eyes briefly and sighing. She feels Mitya’s laugh, quiet against her. “Are you planning on falling asleep there?” he asks. “Because I do not think I can get you home like this if you are sleeping.”

“‘M not,” she mumbles, but it does not sound particularly convincing even to her ears. This tiredness has hit her out of the blue, leaving her eyes drooping and body lethargic.

“I am not carrying you,” Mitya says, coming to a stop, although Dunya knows that he would if he really had to. She pulls her eyelids open.

“I am awake,” she says. “I promise.” She blinks slowly, blearily.

“Oh, I can see that,” Mitya says, sounding not at all convinced by her words. He raises a hand to cup her face and brushes a thumb across her cheekbone. A smile quirks his lips as she breaks into a yawn. “Come on,” he says. “Only the reception to get through, then you can sleep.” Dunya presses her cold hands to her face in the hope it will wake her up more.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay, I am awake now.” She takes a deep breath, grips Mitya’s hand and starts walking again, pacing forward until she feels the yank on her arm. She turns back.

“Let us take it slow,” Mitya suggests. “Give the newly-weds some time alone.” Dunya peers at him curiously, sees how his smile is a little strained, eyes tired. This is clearly affecting him just as much as it is her.

So she lets him set their pace, a slow meander home along the village roads, hand in hand. The sky is dimming as they walk, sun setting and almost behind the trees. In the quiet of the twilight, Dunya feels content, despite everything.

Their home is lit up with warmth when they arrive, the sound of Sonya’s singing trickling out into the night. They both pause for a moment. Dunya takes a deep breath and squeezes Mitya’s hand.

They only have that moment because just then the door opens. “What are you doing waiting out here?” Rodya asks with a laugh. “Come on.”

“Rodya!” Sonya cries from behind him. “They clearly wanted some time alone!” She peers out over his shoulder. “Oh, but it is cold. Can you do this indoors?”

Dunya has never been able to refuse Sonya even the most insignificant request, so she lets her take her hand - the heat of hers against Dunya’s cold one sending sparks across Dunya’s skin, shooting through her with adrenaline - and lead her into the kitchen.

Every surface is covered in platters of food, piled high and steaming hot. “Do you think it is enough?” Sonya asks, worriedly. Dunya makes herself laugh. It sounds flat to her, but Sonya does not seem to notice anything amiss.

“Sonya, I think it is your wedding day and you should be letting me concern myself with all this. Go, sit down,” she says, pushing her in the direction of the door.

“Dunya,” Sonya whispers. “Whatever would I do without you?” Something tears in Dunya’s heart at that, because Sonya does not mean it like that, would never mean it like that. And all Dunya can do is smile and pretend as though her heart is not breaking.

“I hope we will never have to find out,” she manages, and then turns away, swallowing at the lump in her throat. “I mean it,” she continues, hoping her voice does not sound as strained as she thinks. “Go sit down. I will sort all this.”

*

It is not until Mitya comes up to her, an hour or so into the gathering, that Dunya realises anything is wrong. The look on his face is one of horror, of someone having seen something they would rather forget, and Dunya is struck by a momentary panic. “What is it?” she asks frantically. “Is it Sonya? Or Rodya?”

“No, nothing of that sort,” he says, hastily. “Only, someone has gone and invited Ludmila Vasiliyevna _and_ Varvara Ivanovna, and it is only a matter of time before they both realise it.”

“Is there any way we can keep them apart?” Mitya shakes his head.

“Not unless our house suddenly grew ten times in size,” he tells her ruefully. “I am planning on camping out here and hoping neither of them comes over.”

“Mitya...” Dunya says, pushing gently at his arm. “Come on.”

“Dunya, my love, not even for you would I put myself between those two.” He looks about to continue when Rodya runs up to them, a panicked look on his face. Before he can speak, an outraged squawk emanates from the sitting room.

“Oh, fuck,” Mitya swears, but he does not move. Not that Dunya can blame him right now. She would not particularly want to get between Ludmila Vasiliyevna and Varvara Ivanovna either.

“Should we not go help?” Rodya asks, gaze flicking back and forth between Dunya and Mitya.

“Do you really want to get into that?” Mitya replies gesturing vaguely in the direction of the sound.

Dunya gives him a look. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Rodya doing the same. Mitya wilts under their combined force. “Fine,” he says, throwing up his hands. “Let us go help Sonya undo a mess she precipitated.”

“Actually,” Rodya breaks in. “I invited them both.”

“You did _what?_ ” Dunya comes to a sudden stop. “And on your _wedding day?_ ” Now it is Rodya’s turn to give way under her glare.

“They are not so bad, are they?” he asks, a hopeful tone to his voice.

“Prison must have addled your brains, brother,” Dunya says. “Or did you never hear of their feud while you were in there?” Rodya’s sheepish smile tells her that he either genuinely believed it to be not so bad, or he tuned out when it was being discussed. Knowing Rodya, it was the latter. Dunya sighs. “You are going to have some explaining to do.”

The shouting has got louder now, spilling out of the sitting room at such a volume that there is no possible way anyone in the house is not hearing it. Dunya gives a quick thanks that they do not have any neighbours to disturb with all this.

“That was _my_ recipe and you know it,” Ludmila Vasiliyevna is saying as they enter the room.

It looks like something out of some kind of nightmare, Dunya thinks. Ludmila Vasiliyevna on one side of the room, wielding what looks to be a half-eaten varenik, and Varvara Ivanovna on the other, a sneer painted across her face. Sonya looks to be bravely trying to stand between the two women, hands outstretched.

“Do you think we can give Sonya moral support from somewhere over there?” Mitya mumbles. Rodya seems inclined to agree, so Dunya gives him a push towards them.

“Come on,” she says. “You started this.” Even when he was about to go to prison did Rodya not look so scared as he does now. Dunya almost wants to laugh at the look on his face.

“I do not know what to do!” he hisses in desperation.

“Men!” Dunya throws up her hands, exasperated. “I will sort it then.” She strides forward, placing herself squarely between the two women arguing. By some kind of magic, it seems, they stop talking.

It is probably because they have never been interrupted like this before, and Dunya for a moment worries what she is getting herself in for, standing up to them in this way.

“Enough,” she says, firmly. “It is a wedding day. If you wish to continue arguing, you may take it outside.”

There is deathly silence. Dunya can hear her heart rate skyrocket, thudding in her ears. She glances at Sonya, whose face is a caricature of shock. Varvara Ivanovna looks outraged at being thus spoken to, but Ludmila Vasiliyevna has a smirk playing across her lips and a glint in her eye.

“Avdotya Romanovna,” she says. “I did not think you had it in you.”

Dunya does not know how to respond to that, so she says nothing. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Varvara Ivanovna huff and turn away.

“I thank you for your invitation, Rodion Romanovich.” She speaks stiffly, as if having to force the words out against her own desire, lest she seem impolite. “I wish you all the best.”

And then she is gone, and Dunya does not think it an exaggeration to say that the room seems to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

“Right,” Sonya says into the silence. “Shall we continue?”

*

It is late when they finally turn in for the night, almost the next morning, in fact. Sonya and Rodya had made their way upstairs earlier to laughs and cheers, leaving Dunya and Mitya to clear up. Now, the house is quiet, only the occasional creak of the floorboards disturbing it. Dunya lies back on her bed, almost too tired to actually sleep.

Moonlight filters through a gap in her curtains, sparking out over the ceiling. Dunya traces it with her eyes, watching the shadows of a tree outside flicker across wooden beams. She feels unsteady, like something has changed irrevocably and nothing will ever be the same again.

In a way, it has.

But it feels like more than just Sonya and Rodya marrying. It feels deeper than that and Dunya cannot explain it.

Restlessly, she turns over in bed, tangling herself up in the sheets. She hears something that sounds like a laugh, like _Sonya’s_ laugh. Involuntarily, her mind provides her with the image of Sonya and Rodya laughing like that together. She wishes it were her there, in bed, with Sonya, wishes with a kind of desperation she does not remember feeling ever before.

 _Stop,_ she thinks to herself. _That way lies only pain._

She rolls over and watches the moonlight scattering through her room again. The clock on her dresser says that it is five in the morning — that makes it a good two hours of being unable to sleep — so with a sigh, she sits up. Maybe she can wear herself out cleaning or baking, she thinks.

She wraps a shawl around her shoulders and pads, barefooted, over the bedroom floor. The wooden slats beneath her feet are cool, but when she reaches the kitchen and the stone slabs there, she hisses at the cold. She picks her way across the space, hopping from foot to foot in an attempt to remain warm. The samovar is still hot to the touch, even this late, so she makes herself a glass of tea, if only for something to wrap her hands around.

Curled up on a sofa in the sitting room, Dunya listens to the steady ticking of the clock. She thinks she can understand why Mitya took up breadmaking now because there is only so much of her own thoughts she can take before she starts to drive herself crazy.

She takes a sip of her tea and cracks a yawn.

“What are you doing up?” Rodya asks from the doorway and she starts.

“Do not sneak up on me like that!” she hisses. Rodya smirks.

“That is not an answer to my question,” he says.

“I just could not sleep, that is all,” she tells him.

“Me neither,” Rodya says, coming to sit down by her. She shoves her toes, still cold, under his leg. He flinches away from her briefly, then settles back, allowing her this. They sink into a comfortable silence.

“What is kept you awake?” she asks after a long moment.

“Hmm?” Rodya looks surprised to hear her speak, as if he was a world away from her, lost in his thoughts. “Oh,” he says. “Sonya kicks.” This comes paired with a rueful smile, and Dunya laughs in spite of herself, in spite of the gut punch it gives her.

“I would suggest you do as Mitya and I,” she tells him. “But we do not have another bed.”

“I suppose I shall have to get used to it, I see,” Rodya sighs dramatically.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Dunya murmurs, leaning forward and squeezing Rodya’s cheek teasingly. He pouts and pulls away from her. Dunya cracks another yawn all of a sudden, moving so that she can tip into Rodya and rest her head in the crook of his neck. He shifts to wrap and arm across her shoulders. The warmth of him makes her sleepy and she feels herself drifting off. Her glass slips slightly in her grasp, and he takes it to place on the floor. Almost asleep now, she presses into him more.

The last thing she registers before sleep claims her is his soft question. “We are alright, are we not, Dunya?” She tries to give a hum of acquiescence, but she does not know if he hears it.

And then she is dreaming.

*

A week after the wedding, they have settled into a routine, the four of them. Sonya and Mitya wake up the earliest so they are in charge of breakfast. After breakfast, Mitya either retreats to his study to work or stays in the kitchen to try his newest bread recipe (he has still been unable to create what he terms ‘the perfect loaf’). Meanwhile, Sonya runs errands, though after the debacle that was Ludmila Vasiliyevna and Varvara Ivanovna’s confrontation at the wedding, Dunya does not dare ask what she does. Rodya disappears for hours on end, which Dunya assumes is his way of enjoying his freedom. Either that or he is still doing penance for his part in the wedding affair.

And then, one day, Rodya returns home holding a cat.

It is a mangy little thing, thin and bony with patches of fur missing. It is hard to tell what colour its fur is supposed to be with all the dirt it is covered in. A pair of bright blue eyes stands out against the dull grey. When Dunya goes near, it hisses at her and extends its claws. She gets the message.

“You did not just pick it up off the street, did you?” she asks Rodya, faintly horrified. The look on Rodya’s face tells her he did just that. “It will be covered in flees and lice!” Dunya exclaims.

“I will wash her,” Rodya promises, digging his fingers into the cat’s back. Inexplicably, the thing starts purring.

“Good luck with that,” Dunya mutters, but she stays to watch, with almost morbid curiosity, as Rodya fills the sink with water and tries to put the cat in. It is nearly comic the way the cat contorts herself to avoid it. Every time Rodya goes to dip her in, she starts scratching and scrambling her way up his arm, until there are red scratches across his skin.

“Give her to me,” Dunya says finally. “And go disinfect those scratches, you do not know where her claws have been.” Surprisingly, this time when she goes near the cat, she does not hiss, instead settling comfortably in her arms, a purr rumbling through her. Dunya assumes she is just glad to get away from the threat of water. “I know,” Dunya murmurs. “The water is scary, I know. But we have to get you washed.”

It is some sort of miracle that the cat goes calmly into the water when Dunya tries it. The unholy scratching and yowling that had accompanied Rodya’s attempts are nowhere to be seen. Instead, the cat sits quietly as Dunya scrubs it down, even leaning into her hands at points. Then, it seems, she decides she has had enough, because she leaps out of the sink, onto the sideboard, and gives herself a good shake.

Dunya yelps as she is splattered with cold water. The cat gives her a baleful look. “You were fine a second ago,” Dunya tells her. “So do not give me that.” She does not know if the cat understands her, but something appears to change in its expression.

Reaching past the cat, Dunya grabs a towel and gently starts to pat her dry. The cat sits grumpily through it all, her patience for this treatment apparently worn thin. “You are alright,” Dunya tells her. “Here, I am done now.” With a regal look, the cat jumps off the side and pads her way over to a chair. “What are we going to call you?” Dunya wonders, folding the towel and placing it to the side so she remembers to wash it later. The cat chirrups and raises a paw to snag at Dunya’s skirts. Absently, Dunya digs her fingers into the cat’s forehead and strokes. “I think I will call you Galenka,” she says. “You remind me of a Galenka I once knew. Always wanting attention.”

Galenka purrs, as if she agrees with the decision. Now she has been washed, it is easier to see what she looks like, patchy fur aside. She is a pale grey colour, with darker grey stripes. Her fur under Dunya’s hand is soft, now it is free of dirt.

Dunya hears footsteps coming back towards the kitchen. “We are naming her Galenka,” she declares as Rodya comes back into the room, trailed by Mitya.

“I thought you did not even want her,” Rodya says dryly, but Dunya can hear a slightly smug tone to his voice as well.

“Yes, and now I do,” Dunya replies archly. Galenka headbutts her elbow, wanting attention.

Rodya reaches out to try stroke Galenka, and gets a hiss for his troubles. “I cannot believe it,” he says, snatching his hand away before she can scratch him again. “You ungrateful animal, who was it who rescued you?”

“She just knows who will look after her in this house, that is all,” Dunya says, letting herself be the smug one this time.

“We will see about that,” Rodya says with a huff. Mitya looks back and forth between the two of them and seems to come to a realisation.

“If you are making this into some sort of competition, I am out of here,” he says warningly. “And I am taking the cat with me.”

“Good luck with that,” Dunya says. “She only likes me.”

“Oh, it is on,” Rodya tells her.

And so begins the Great Cat War of 1874.

*

For the most part, Sonya and Mitya both keep out of their attempts at winning the affection of Galenka. After all, Galenka does not really like either of them anyway. And two weeks into the Great Cat War, she still does not really like Rodya either. Dunya is feeling very pleased with herself about it, if she is honest, because Rodya is looking grumpier about it by the day.

 _Soon,_ she thinks. _Soon he will have to give in._

Rodya has never been one to take his own failures with grace, and he has always persisted in doing something long after it has become clear that he will not succeed. So is the way with Galenka.

Every morning, he puts out a bowl of milk and some fish for Galenka. Every morning, Galenka refuses these offerings in favour of Dunya’s. If Rodya attempts to pick Galenka up, she becomes a whirl of snarls and hisses, more often than not landing another scratch on Rodya’s arm. Then she will proceed to stalk away to find Dunya and, as if she knows exactly what she is doing, leap onto her lap for a stroke.

Rodya, it would be fair to say, has been fuming for the past week.

One morning, however, Galenka is not to be found in the kitchen as she usually is, waiting to be fed. Not even Dunya’s calling raises her. Confused, they search the house, but find no sign of her.

“What are you looking for?” Sonya asks as they try the sitting room again.

“Galenka,” Rodya says. “We cannot find her anywhere.”

“Did you try Mitya’s study? She has been going in there quite a bit recently.” Dunya exchanges a look with Rodya.

“Do you mean to say my own husband is trying to rig this competition?” Dunya asks, raising an eyebrow. Sonya glances between them.

“Uh…” she tails off.

“Wait,” Rodya interrupts. “Are _you_ in on it too?”

“No?” Sonya says, but it does not sound convincing.

“Right,” Dunya says. “We are going to get to the bottom of this.” She reaches down and tugs Sonya up off the sofa. For a moment, her brain short-circuits at the feel of Sonya’s hand in her own. She forces herself to shake the feeling away.

She leads Sonya and Rodya out of the sitting room and across the hallway to Mitya’s study. Without knocking, she opens the door.

And there, sat on Mitya’s stomach as he lounges on his sofa, is Galenka.

There is a moment of complete silence as Mitya looks up and sees them standing in the doorway, as Dunya and Rodya take in the scene before them.

“My own husband!” Dunya cries at last. “The betrayal!”

“What have you done to her?” Rodya asks in a whisper, stepping into the room. Galenka is sleeping peacefully on Mitya, apparently undisturbed by the commotion.

Mitya shrugs — or does as much of a shrug as he can under the circumstances. “I guess she just likes me more,” he says. There is a small smirk playing at his lips as Dunya gasps, speechlessly.

“Fine,” she says. “I see how it is. But that puts you in charge of her now, though.”

“Wait, hey,” Rodya interrupts. “You cannot just give away my cat like that!”

“Is she even your cat anymore?” Dunya asks. “I mean she seems to have firmly adopted Mitya in all this.” As if to underscore her point, Galenka takes this moment to stretch out and gently butt her head against Mitya’s hand, asking to be stroked. Next to Dunya, Rodya seems to deflate.

“This is the thanks I get?” he mutters. “For rescuing you like I did?” Galenka, oblivious, starts purring. Behind them, Sonya makes a sound like a cough. Dunya turns to find her stifling a laugh, eyes glinting with mirth. Her heart stutters and she is fairly sure she is gaping like a fool right now.

Sonya reaches out a hand and rests two fingers on Dunya’s wrist, right over her pulse, opening her mouth to say something. But Dunya’s heartbeat fills her ears, so loud she is inexplicably, irrationally sure Sonya can hear it too. Her eyes are on Dunya’s, boring in as though she can see right into the depths of her. Dunya could not look away even if she wanted to.

“Hey!” Rodya’s yelp startles them both. Galenka has scratched him. Again.

With a huff, Galenka jumps down off Mitya, who sits up to take Rodya’s hand in his own. “It is not so bad,” he says, while Rodya grumbles something about a demon cat.

“I know it is not _bad,_ ” Rodya says grumpily. “But she does not scratch anyone else!” He has not pulled his hand out of Mitya’s grip yet; his fingers have even slightly curled around Mitya’s. Dunya feels like she is witnessing something private.

She turns to Sonya, her stomach roiling with some sort of apprehension, but the look on Sonya’s face is an unexpected one. As if something she had suspected has been confirmed. Dunya looks back at the others, only to find them now separated, Mitya determinedly not meeting Rodya’s eyes.

A strange tension permeates the room, leaving Dunya feeling stifled. Something has happened, something she cannot put her finger on.

It is almost a relief when there is a knock on the door.

“I will get it,” she says quickly, taking the opportunity for a moment’s respite from this feeling.

At the door is a prison guard, one with whom Dunya had talked a lot while Rodya had been jailed, holding an envelope.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” he says. “Only this came for you at the prison. I thought I would drop it off on the way home.”

“Are you sure it is not for Rodya?” Dunya asks, accepting the envelope, but the name on the front is her own. Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova. “Thank you,” she says, confused. “I cannot think how it ended up with you.”

The man shrugs, apparently unconcerned by it.

“Thank you,” Dunya repeats, somewhat needlessly. “Have a nice day.”

“Who was that?” Rodya asks from behind her. Startled, she turns suddenly.

“No one,” she says, though it sounds fake even to her own ears. “Just the post.” She does not know why she is being so disingenuous over this letter. She does not even know what is in it, after all. But still, it feels like something she should keep from Rodya. Something that need not concern him.

*

Later, she wonders if she had some inkling all along who the letter was from. When she opens it, she does not immediately recognise the handwriting. Instead she skims down the page to see the author’s signature.

It is from Svidrigailov.

Panicked, Dunya folds the letter up and shoves it back into the envelope. She does not want to think about that man. She does not want the letter or what it contains.

And yet, she places the letter carefully in her diary. She does not throw it away or burn it.

Despite everything, she thinks that some part of her may be just a bit curious to read what Svidrigailov has to say.

*

The letter may be folded away, but it still fills Dunya’s thoughts in most of her waking moments, leaving her preoccupied and absent minded for the next week. She forgets to feed the cat until Galenka comes and paws at her. She drops a plate on the floor because she is too busy thinking about it. But this preoccupation is no more evident than on the day that she manages to forget is the anniversary of her mother’s death.

Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikova had lived with Dunya and Mitya following Rodya’s imprisonment for only a year before her passing. The whole affair had left her weakened, more a loss of spirit rather than anything physical the doctors could find, but debilitating nonetheless. She had spent day on day lying in bed, staring listlessly at the ceiling. Dunya had tried her hardest to coax her outside, to see the sunlight, or to feel the cool air, but she would not move.

And then one day Dunya had entered her room to find her cold, so unnaturally cold that Dunya had been confused at first, some part of her reluctant to even consider that this was death. She had reached out and touched Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s hand, whispering “Mama?” like a child. Pulcheria Alexandrovna had not responded, not even a flicker, and that had been when Dunya knew. That had been when she had taken a deep breath, and gone to find Mitya.

It had not really hit her until a few days after the fact, well after the funeral even, and when she was writing to Rodya to relay the news. There were probably tear stains on the letter he received, ink smudged and blotted, writing illegible in some places. And now, every year since, Dunya has put flowers out in memory of her mother, since she can no longer lay them on her grave.

There are no flowers this year, though, and it is not until Sonya asks about them that she notices.

“Oh,” she says, startled. “It must have completely slipped my mind.” That gets her a worried look. She is not usually one to forget anything — that is Mitya’s domain in this household — so her admission must come as a surprise. But it is not as though she feels like admitting about the letter.

“Slipped your mind?” Sonya echoes back. “Are you quite alright?” She comes closer, rests the back of her hand against Dunya’s forehead. “You are not coming down with something, are you?” she asks.

Dunya’s face floods with heat, from Sonya’s closeness, from the feel of her skin against Dunya’s own, and Sonya says, almost idly, “You do feel a bit warm.”

It makes her want to laugh, suddenly. Here she is, flushing because Sonya is touching her, and Sonya believes it is just a fever. If only it were. She realises that Sonya is waiting for a reply.

“Oh,” she says. “It is not that. I feel perfectly fine, I promise.” She reaches up and pulls Sonya’s hand away from her face gently. “I have merely been preoccupied.”

Sonya bites her lip, and Dunya’s eyes are drawn to her mouth, the curve of it, the indent made by her teeth. She is jolted out of her reverie when Sonya’s hand presses on her stomach inexplicably.

“Is it… You have not been preoccupied by…” Sonya starts but does not finish, instead flicking her gaze down and back up, as if that is supposed to convey to Dunya exactly what is going on here.

“Is it what?” Dunya asks. She can feel the warmth of Sonya’s skin seeping through the fabric of her dress, distracting her from the conversation at hand.

“You know…” Sonya says.

“No, I do _not_ ,” Dunya tells her. Sonya looks her in the eye, assessing something, and then she sighs and pulls her hand away. Dunya almost wants to grab for it, to keep it there against her, but Sonya’s next words stop her short.

“Is it about Mitya?” she asks. “Rodya and I, we were wondering, you do not share a bed…” she trails off again, seemingly frustrated and unable to find the right words. “You have been married for nearly a decade and there are no children,” she says at last, bluntly. “So, naturally, we wondered if there was… some sort of a problem.”

This is so far from what Dunya might have expected, she finds there is a long moment before she can answer.

“No,” she chokes out eventually. “ _No._ ” Her heart is climbing up her throat with each beat, leaving her breathless and filling her ears with drumming.

“Rodya suggested he could talk to Mitya,” Sonya continues, apparently oblivious to Dunya’s turmoil, apparently not believing Dunya, despite her denial. It takes a moment for the words to register but when they do, Dunya finds herself filled with an almost unholy fury.

“I do _not_ need my brother to intervene in _my_ marriage,” she hisses. “It is _none_ of his business. And it is not yours either.”

“I did not mean to imply—” Sonya starts, but Dunya cuts her off. She is too angry to stop the words from spilling out of her mouth now.

“Mitya and I are fine. We have discussed it, and this is the arrangement that suits us. And I will not have anyone judge me for it,” she snaps. Her hands are starting to shake from fury, so she snatches up a cloth bag from the back of a chair and her shawl from the hook by the door. “I am going out to get flowers,” she says before Sonya can respond, and then she is gone, out into the brisk morning.

“Dunya!” she hears Sonya call after her. But she does not come following.

*

When Dunya was a child, her mother used to despair over her ability to hold a grudge. “It is not ladylike,” she would fret, as Dunya glared at Rodya (for it was usually Rodya on the receiving end of these grudges). Dunya had, as a rule, ignored this pronouncement, until it became clear that she would do better, not by ignoring, but merely by _hiding_ these grudges. And so, on the outside, she had smiled genteelly at whatever slight Rodya had committed (for he committed many), while on the inside she had tallied them up almost obsessively.

But when Rodya had gone to jail, she had come to the conclusion that she ought to dismiss those many years of held grudges. If only because it seemed meaningless now. Rodya was imprisoned for a murder, after all. That, rather than the grudges, had consumed her thoughts.

For all that she followed Rodya to Siberia, came after him despite everything, she found it harder to accept his actions, harder to forgive him them, than either Mitya or Sonya had. Maybe it was something about the fact that he was her brother that made it so difficult. She knew him. Or she thought she did at least. She was the one who had grown up with him.

But obviously she had not known him so well as all that. Obviously, there was something more, something darker that had driven him to this. To killing two people.

And while Sonya’s letters had spoken of his remorse, his desire to repent, something in Dunya had struggled with it still. How could she claim she knew him anymore? The Rodya she had grown up with had been the type of child to get upset at even the idea of stepping on a snail. Yes, he had been prone to sulking, and pinching her from time to time, but he would never truly hurt anyone. Or so she had thought.

So as Sonya and Mitya and Pulcheria Alexandrovna had each forgiven Rodya in turn (although in their mother’s case, it is doubtful whether she truly believed Rodya to be guilty in the first place), Dunya had sat and stewed on it. Mitya had helped, able to fill in the biggest gaps in Dunya’s picture of her brother, able also not to sugarcoat things as her mother and, to an extent, Sonya did.

It had been desperation, he had explained. Desperation had driven Rodya to it. But Dunya, not knowing that sort of desperation, never having been in that position, could only imagine it.

In the end, it had been the need to inform her brother of their mother’s death that had made the difference. Rodya had finally been able to write her a letter then, and the curve of his handwriting on the page, the distinctiveness of his voice, it had all made her miss him so much it almost took her breath away. Which was how the forgiveness started.

And so, she had resolved _not_ to hold grudges any longer. After all, if she could find her way to forgiving Rodya for murder, what was a little grudge?

That had, obviously, been a bit optimistic of her, she realises that now. If she had managed not to hold grudges for the past however many years, it is merely because the principal beneficiary of those grudges had been one Rodion Romanovich, whom she had seen very irregularly in that time.

Really, she should have expected this on some level. It was only a matter of time before they started to rile each other up.

She had not expected Sonya to become involved though.

That is what hurts the most right now. More than the accusation that she does not know her own marriage, does not make any decisions in it, it is Sonya’s belief in that which stings.

She lets out a hiss of breath through her teeth. In her haste to get away from the house, she only grabbed a shawl. Her breath condenses in the air and she tugs her shawl around her tighter. She does not want to go home, not just yet, so she takes a turning in the road that will lead her down to a little hut on the river, one she had found while exploring on her arrival here.

There is a small pile of wood outside the door, enough that, with a couple of flints, Dunya can get a fire going in the hearth. She squats beside it and reaches out her hands to take in its warmth. As she does so, something crinkles in the bodice of her dress, and she abruptly remembers that this is where she has put Svidrigailov's letter.

She takes it out.

It is just a letter, she knows this, rationally. There is nothing in it that can harm her — she is far enough away from him — but that does not keep her from feeling a sense of trepidation at the thought of opening it.

She thinks, for a second, about throwing it in the fire and being done with it.

And then she thinks what Rodya would say.

Rodya would hate the fact that Svidrigailov has contacted her. He would hate that her first thought is not to throw it away unopened.

“Fuck Rodya,” she says out loud. Rodya has no right to tell her what to do.

That is what drives her to open the letter.

 _My dearest Avdotya Romanovna,_ it begins, and it is so perfectly reminiscent of Svidrigailov that Dunya shivers.

_Many years ago I swore I would never contact you again, but alas, I am thus prevailed upon now. To put it simply, I am dying and there would be no greater pleasure for this old man than to see you again for one last time._

_I am aware that you will likely dismiss this letter out of hand: and how could I blame you if you did! I who have caused you such pain, such unimaginable pain!; I who have no claim on you, who could never dare have a claim on you._

(At this point, Dunya has to take a breath and calm herself. Oh, this is just like Svidrigailov, she thinks.)

 _There has not been a single day passed in which I have not thought of you,_ Svidrigailov continues. _I restrained myself for your sake because you had so cruelly rejected me and there was nothing more to it. Oh, how I missed you. But no! I promised myself I would not burden you with my regrets here. They are my regrets and mine alone._

_But, oh Dunya, dear Dunya! (May I call you that? You who are dearest to me!)_

_Would that I might see you once more! Though I know I do not deserve it, it is the last wish of a dying man. You who are so kind, so gentle; surely you would grant me this?_

_You may wonder, I realise, just how I come to have your address. My dear, dear Dunya! It is of no consequence. But do not fear. I do not intend to come to you, only wish that you might come to me._

_Yours in eternity,  
_ _Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov_

When she has finished reading the letter, Dunya makes herself go through it again. If only because she cannot believe the audacity of the man.

Oh she cannot stand him. She thought he had given up eight years ago, but apparently he had just been biding his time. She has half a mind to go to him and to tell him exactly what she thinks of him. But neither Rodya nor Mitya would allow it.

And then she remembers she is still angry with Rodya. She is angry at him _and_ Svidrigailov, the both of them, for being men who believe they have some sort of right to her. They cannot tell her what to do, not Rodya with his concerns for her marriage, nor Svidrigailov with his requests for a visit. If she does anything, it will be because _she_ wants to and not because they have told her to.

With that, she resolves that she will go to visit Svidrigailov in the next week.

Just let Rodya try and stop her.

*

As predicted, Rodya does, of course, try to stop her. “You are not going,” he starts with, later that evening, when Dunya has returned home, fury hardened to ice within her.

“Oh?” she says. “Pray tell, dear brother, why that is.” The frost in her voice makes Mitya, a more observant man than her brother, wince. Rodya, the fool that he is, carries on as if he can make a difference to her decision.

“For one, I forbid it,” he says. Dunya scoffs out a laugh.

“You are my brother, not my husband,” she tells him acidly.

“Well then,” Rodya brushes her off. “ _Mitya_ forbids it.”

“Mitya is staying out of this conversation,” the man in question mutters.

“I cannot believe you truly wish to go see that… that _villain_ , after what he did to you! Do you not remember—”

Dunya cuts him off sharply. “I remember what he did, for he did it to _me_ , did he not?”

Rodya runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “Then why do you want to see him?”

“Perhaps I wish to know what he has to say,” she says archly. “That is not a crime, is it?”

“You want us to travel halfway across the country to see this man, just to find out what he has to say? Write him a letter and be done with it!”

“Us?” Dunya asks. “You do not think I intend to let you come along?” That riles Rodya even further.

“You are not going alone!” he snaps.

“I told you already, you cannot deny me.”

“Like _hell_ I cannot,” Rodya hisses. And suddenly Dunya is angrier with him than she has ever been before.

“So first you decide you can instruct me on how to conduct my marriage, now on whether I can or cannot visit someone? You must think yourself some sort of tyrant, able to order everyone around! How many times do I have to tell you that none of this is any of your business!”

She has ended up shouting the last part and when she finishes, her breath is coming heavily. Rodya looks something between frustrated that she is not bending to his wishes and perplexed that she might feel this way.

Mitya shifts uncomfortably.

The tension in the kitchen has reached almost unbearable levels. It roils around them as Dunya’s glare meets Rodya’s own. _Go on,_ she thinks. _Tell me again what I am not allowed to do._

The door slams open with the wind.

“Oops,” Sonya cries, trying to grasp at the handle while holding Galenka in her arms. Then she looks up and takes in the scene. Dunya and Rodya stood across the table from one another, fury in their very stances. Mitya sat at the table looking back and forth between them. She sets Galenka down and shuts the door quietly.

“Is everything…” she trails off, clearly realising that her question has little meaning when everything is so obviously _not_ fine.

“We will talk about this again later,” Rodya tells Dunya gruffly, pointing a finger at her. He has so evidently not been paying attention to a word she has said that she bares her teeth in anger.

But he storms out of the room before she can say a word. Sonya looks after him, seeming to debate following or staying. Following Rodya must win out — either that or she is reluctant to be around Dunya after their argument that morning — because she heads towards the corridor. “I will just…” she says, gesturing vaguely in the direction Rodya went and then she is gone too.

Dunya lets the tenseness ease out of her body, pulling out a chair to sit at the table with a sigh. Mitya places a hand over hers and squeezes gently. He seems to be considering whether to broach the topic of the argument he has just witnessed or not. In the end, he chooses not.

“Sonya told me about your… uh… discussion,” he says softly. Dunya huffs out what might, generously, be called a laugh.

“Oh, she did,” she say dryly. “Did she ask you why we were not sharing a room as well?”

“Dunya,” Mitya murmurs. “We know why we have such an arrangement, and that is all that really matters.”

“I know,” Dunya says. “I _know._ ” There is a sort of desperation in her tone. She needs to explain it all to someone who might understand it, might get why she is feeling so betrayed. “But I never expected that they would… that they would not respect that.” Mitya shifts his chair around the table until he can wrap an arm across her shoulders and pull her close.

“If it helps,” he says into her hair. “I will tell them I am sterile.” That makes Dunya laugh almost against her will, a weak and watery sound. They sit in silence for a bit, Mitya embracing her, running a hand through her hair.

“What did Svidrigailov want?” Mitya asks eventually. “Apart from you to visit him.”

“He did not really say,” Dunya tells him. “Just that he was dying and wanted to see me. I only wanted to go so I could give him a piece of my mind.”

“Somehow,” Mitya says dryly. “I am not at all surprised you are the kind of person who would go yell at a dying man.”

“Hey!” Dunya says, laughing again, pushing against his chest to extract herself from his hold. “I would not!”

“You just admitted to it!” Mitya is laughing too now and Dunya feels a sudden intense gratitude that this is the man she married. A man who understands her and what she wants.

When their laughter dies down, she confesses softly, “I am glad it was you I married, Dmitry Prokofych.” His gaze rests on her, thoughtfully almost.

“I am glad I married you too, Avdotya Romanovna,” he says, equally soft.

*

A frosty ceasefire fills the house after that. For the next few days, Rodya does not bring up Dunya’s trip and so she grants him the same favour. But every interaction between them, and every one between Dunya and Sonya, is cold and unflinchingly polite. Dunya knows Rodya well enough not to expect an apology and she cuts Sonya off at the pass every time she attempts one, for herself or on Rodya’s behalf. More often than not, Mitya has retreated to his study, followed by Galenka, in an effort to avoid it all and remain neutral.

There is coming a breaking point, Dunya knows. After all, she plans to leave next week, if she is to make it to see Svidrigailov. Rodya will not be happy.

 _What do I care how Rodya feels,_ she thinks to herself. But that is a lie. She would rather go with Rodya’s blessing, his recognition that this is something she needs to do, than without it. Rodya is so stubborn, though, that she knows she is not likely to get it. Not soon at least.

In an attempt to work some frustration out of her system, so that she is not so incoherently angry for the inevitable confrontation, she takes over from Mitya as the resident baker. The kneading of the dough is rhythmic and calming, but it is proofing it that provides the most joy — and release, she must admit.

She has resolved to leave on her journey the following Tuesday, enough time to make the necessary preparations, but not enough for Rodya to build a serious argument to her staying. Of course, she also keeps those preparations secret for now. If she can get away without clashing with him again, that is all the better.

But, naturally, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, as Dunya finds out.

She is folding laundry and setting aside the clothes she wishes to pack when Rodya enters the kitchen. He is waving a letter.

“What is this?” he asks, barely contained fury evident in his tone.

“How am I supposed to know when you are waving it about so?” Dunya snaps, feeling her own anger rise in response.

“You have been writing to request funds? So you still believe you are going ahead with this foolish idea.”

“I _know_ I am going ahead with it,” Dunya snarls.

“No, you are not!” he shouts. “When will you understand just how stupid an idea it is! You cannot go!”

“I do not care if it is a stupid idea,” Dunya shouts back, unable to help herself. “It is my mistake to make!”

“So you admit it is foolish.” Leave it to Rodya to pick up on the least pertinent part of what she has said.

“I said it does not matter if it is!” She wants to shake him, remove the smug look that floats across his face for one brief moment. “It is my choice and you cannot make that decision for me.” Rodya scoffs in disbelief.

“Why are you being so stubborn about this? As the man of this house—”

“Ha!” Dunya cannot help the laughter that bursts from her lips at that. “Do you _hear_ yourself?” she asks him. “‘As the man of this house’” — she imitates him in this — “you have not been a part of this house for eight years and you think you can come in here and take that role? You have no right!” Rodya’s face reddens in anger.

“Regardless, I am still responsible for you—”

“I have a _husband,_ ” Dunya hisses. “Though you seem to keep forgetting.”

“A fat lot of good he is,” Rodya thunders. “He is all for letting you go on this fool’s errand.”

There is a sharp intake of breath from behind them and they both turn to see Mitya stood in the doorway, Sonya at his shoulder. Dunya spots a flash of pain across his features, but it is gone in a moment.

“Perhaps because _he_ knows not to try and make her decisions for her,” he says dryly. There is an undercurrent of hurt to his voice, but Dunya is not sure Rodya notices.

“Even if you disagree?” Rodya asks disbelievingly.

“Like I said,” Mitya tells him with a shrug. “It is not my place to make her decisions. And neither is it yours.” There is a sharpness to his tone now and Rodya flinches slightly from the rebuke that it is.

“Rodya,” Sonya says quietly. “Come on.” She glances at Dunya briefly and bites her lip. “You cannot stop her. You should not stop her.”

“You are ganging up on me then,” Rodya says bitterly. He looks between them, then deflates with a sigh. “Fine, go then. Make your mistakes.”

And then he leaves, pushing past Mitya and Sonya. She reaches out to him in an attempt to stop him, while Mitya looks carefully away.

*

On the morning before Dunya is to set out, a letter arrives. It is an unobtrusive letter, in a small brown envelope printed with Dunya’s name and address in a hand she does not recognise. She is almost reluctant to open it. One letter from a long ago acquaintance is enough for the month. Two starts to look a bit odd.

She opens it.

_Dear Madam,_

_I am writing to inform you of my client — Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov’s — death._

Dunya almost drops the letter.

 _As the sole benefactor of his will_ — now Dunya does drop the letter out of shock. Slowly, still processing, she crouches down to pick it back up and reread the words. _Sole benefactor_.

Svidrigailov has left her everything.

Her hands are shaking as she reads the rest of the letter, fingers gripping the paper so tightly, it crumples beneath them.

 _Our normal procedure would require that you make the journey to see us in our St. Petersburg offices,_ the letter states. _However, we recognise the difficulty inherent due to your circumstances and thus propose to meet at a location halfway between us, at such a time as you see fit._

It continues on, detailing the location they have chosen, but Dunya can scarcely take it all in.

Svidrigailov dead and she his heir. She can hardly countenance it. This must have been what he wished to speak with her about.

Her first thought is that Rodya is going to be so pleased. As she will no longer be seeing Svidrigailov, she has no doubt that he will generously permit her to go to this meeting about the inheritance. It would be just like him.

“Dunya?” Mitya asks from behind her. “Are you alright?” She spins to face him.

“Yes,” she says, but it sounds breathless and false to her, and undoubtedly him too. “It is just—” she breaks off and hands him the letter. “It is easier if you read it.”

She watches as his eyes widen and his mouth falls open. “Dunya,” he starts, looking up to meet her gaze. But he seemingly has no more words to offer and Dunya shrugs somewhat shakily.

“I know,” she says. “I know.” She takes a breath. “Rodya will be happy to get his way after all,” she remarks a little bitterly.

“So you will not go to the meeting?” Mitya asks.

“I do not know,” Dunya confesses. “I do not know if I want to take his money.”

“It is only what you are owed, after what he put you through,” Mitya says. He takes a step closer and grips her upper arms. “Think on it,” he whispers, then presses a kiss to her forehead. She closes her eyes briefly and lets herself lean into him.

“You know you are going to have to tell Rodya,” he murmurs.

“Must I?” Dunya asks petulantly. “He will be so insufferably smug.” Mitya laughs.

“I will assist you should he get too much so,” he promises.

*

In the end, Dunya can think of no better way to break the news than to state it and all but dare Rodya to make an issue of it. This is the most effective way to cut him off at the pass she has found over the years. He still has not found a way to counter her when she does.

So, as they sit down to dinner later that day, she announces, “There is no need for my travelling to see Svidrigailov after all. I received a letter today informing me of his death.”

Even Mitya, who knew this already, starts at that.

“You might have found a way to break the news less abruptly!” he cries. “I am trying to eat!”

“Well, I have now broken it, so you may go back to eating,” Dunya says. She very carefully does not look at Rodya or Sonya.

“I am sorry to hear it,” Sonya says. “For what it is worth.” Now Dunya cannot help but glance at her. She is like a fly caught in a web, unable to pull her eyes away from Sonya’s own. They are still only speaking cordially, for all of Sonya’s attempts otherwise, but right now, Dunya cannot recall why that is.

“I for one— ow!” Focus interrupted, Dunya turns to Rodya who is reaching down to rub his shin. “What was that for?” he asks Mitya.

“What?” Mitya replies, affecting innocence.

“You just kicked me!”

“Oh, did I?” At this, Rodya throws up his hands.

“What did you _think_ was there?”

“What did I think was where?” Rodya blinks disbelievingly at Mitya. Dunya loves Mitya, really she does, but he is not the best at creating a distraction.

Although, even with all that it seems to have somehow worked.

“You are… it is… inexplicable,” Rodya mutters in the end. “This damn house…”

It is then that Mitya flicks a glance at Dunya, a mischievous glint to his gaze, and she has to fight to keep a straight face.

“So you will never know what he wanted from you?” Sonya asks, clearly sensing a need to divert the conversation. Dunya hesitates.

“No,” she says carefully. She looks down at her plate and pokes at her food with her fork. “He wanted to tell me he was leaving me his estate.”

Rodya starts choking on something and Mitya reaches over to thump him on the back.

“Run that by me again,” he says hoarsely when he has finished coughing.

“He left me everything.”

“ _Everything?_ ”

“That is what the letter said.”

Rodya seems at a loss for words and Dunya cannot really blame him. She is in the same position.

“Well,” he says eventually. “Well. And… how are you going to get this… everything?”

“I will be travelling to meet his lawyer’s representatives.” Dunya forces herself to say this lightly. As much as she is still angry with Rodya, she does not wish to precipitate yet another argument.

“Oh,” is all Rodya says in response. There is a pause. “Where will you be travelling to?” He is also speaking in a deliberately polite tone.

“They have chosen a town that splits the journey back to St. Petersburg in two.”

“And when are you going?”

“Whenever I decide to, I had not thought on it.”

Throughout this, Dunya can sense both Mitya and Sonya’s gazes flicking back and forth between them, nervous that another fight might erupt at any moment. But one does not. Rodya simply nods and goes back to his food.

*

That night, Dunya looks out of her window and sees Sonya standing in the moonlight, gazing at the stars. She wants to go down, to reach out and hold her. But Sonya seems so untouchable in this moment, she does not dare move. Down below, Rodya steps out of the house and walks across the grass towards Sonya.

Dunya looks away before they meet.


	3. Sonya

A cool finger trails its way down Sonya’s back. She is lying in a field in the sun, butterflies alighting on her briefly before taking flight again. This is how she knows it is not Siberia, how she knows it is a dream.

But it is one of those dreams that she does not want to wake up from. She wants to stay here forever, head resting in her arms in the grass. Someone, the same person whose finger brushed over her skin, laughs softly.

It is a woman’s laugh.

She wonders idly who it is. She could, of course, look up and find out, but the sunlight and its warmth make her drowsy and disinclined to do so. Her eyes drift shut.

A hand brushes her hair away from her face and, like a sunflower to the light, she leans into it, murmuring something — she does not know what.

Another laugh. A kiss pressed softly against her jaw. She opens her eyes—

—she is awake in her room, Rodya sleeping soundly beside her.

She can hear the soft snuffling of his breath, feel the warmth of his body. It is suddenly oppressively close in the room and Sonya slips out from under the covers in an attempt to escape it.

Out from the cocoon of the bedclothes, the air is cool on Sonya’s skin, raising goosebumps on her arms. The floor is cold beneath her bare feet and she hisses quietly. Back in bed, Rodya shifts restlessly. Sonya stills, waiting to see if he is awake, but there is no further noise from his direction.

She does not know why she wants him to remain asleep. Once, she had envisioned marriage to involve such nighttime talks as she might precipitate now. They have only been married a month or so — they have only been living in the same house barely thrice that — and yet, this is not something she wishes to share with Rodya. In all honesty, it is not something she _can_ share with him.

She loves him. She _loves_ him.

Does she not?

And this strange feeling of unsettlement that winds its way through her in the early hours like this — she wants to be able to dismiss it out of hand. But she cannot. It sits there, in the pit of her stomach, in the back of her mind, something that cannot be ignored.

*

She wakes late, groggy and bleary-eyed. She had only managed to get back to sleep as the sun was rising, and as such, she has slept in. The clock on the mantelpiece tells her it is gone midday. “Shit,” she swears and pushes the covers aside.

Downstairs, she hurries past Mitya’s study. The door is open and she can see him working, Galenka perched on his lap. “Hello, Mitya,” she calls as she goes by.

“Sonya!” She stops and backtracks to lean against his door frame. He turns, as much as Galenka will allow, to face her.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “I heard you up late last night.” Sonya’s brain stutters a moment, unsure how to respond. She does not know why exactly — it is not like saying she could not sleep is going to cause any trouble.

But the reason why she could not sleep?

“Bad dreams,” she says shortly. Then, seeing that Mitya seems taken aback by her uncharacteristic abruptness, she forces her voice to soften. “I just woke up and could not get back to sleep, is all, Mitya. Do not worry yourself over me.”

The look on Mitya’s face radiates scepticism, but he seems content enough to leave her be. “Well, there is some unburnt bread in the kitchen if you want to eat,” is all he says.

“Unburnt?” Sonya asks, a smile stretching across her lips. “You mean your attempts are getting better?”

“That is uncalled for!” Mitya cries, startling Galenka for a second. He winces as her claws dig into his leg before she settles back again. “I will have you know I produce edible bread at least three times out of four now.”

“Just ‘edible’ is a low bar, Mitya.”

“Well, you eat it, do you not? Besides, the perfect bread is a work in progress. And it’s just progressing rather slowly, that’s all.”

“I am sure you will get there soon,” Sonya says. “But when did you make this bread? I have not seen you baking in a while.”

“Oh,” Mitya says, clearly affecting his airy tone. Sonya can see his shoulders stiffen ever so slightly. “Around one in the morning, I believe.” She watches him swallow. “I am up most nights,” he continues, now not meeting her eye. His hand rubs idly at Galenka’s head, to her growing satisfaction. “You could come and join me. Dunya sometimes does.”

Sonya sighs and steps into the room properly, coming up to stand behind Mitya’s chair. “I think I am still not in Dunya’s good graces,” she says quietly. “Perhaps it would be best if I did not.”

“Perhaps,” Mitya concedes. “But you would still be welcome. Besides, I do not believe Dunya can hold out much longer.”

“Rodya says otherwise.” She sighs. “Mitya, I do not know how I can make this right.” Mitya looks at her then. There is a moment, as if he is assessing her for something, but she does not know what.

“I think all you can do is wait,” he tells her, eventually. “I think…” He sighs. “Sonya, there is more to it than you know.” When she opens her mouth to ask what, he raises a hand and adds quickly, “That it is not my place to talk about. Dunya will tell you if and when she is ready.”

“If she ever speaks to me again.”

“Well that might be a bit difficult in this house…” Sonya thumps him gently in the arm. “Listen,” he says. “I can ask her, discreetly, about it, if it would make you feel better. I just cannot promise anything.”

“Would you?” Sonya asks, hearing the relief starkly in her own voice. “You are the only person she is talking to right now.” Mitya raises an eyebrow as though to say _I wonder why that is_ , but he refrains from commenting.

“Of course,” he says. “At the very least things might thaw so that I do not get glared at every time I talk to the wrong person.” He sounds like he is joking, but Sonya can hear a faint undercurrent of strain.

“How are you and Rodya?” Sonya asks, and watches as a muscle clenches involuntarily in his jaw.

“We are fine,” he says shortly. “Why do you ask?”

“Mitya…” Sonya starts.

“Sonya, I promise you, we are fine.” Now it is her turn to pull a face. Mitya huffs out something that might be a laugh. “We are at least talking to one another,” he tells her.

“Oh, what a household we are,” Sonya says wryly. “Half of us not talking, the other half only barely talking.”

“Harsh, but not unfair,” Mitya allows. “I would suggest sitting down and airing grievances, but I do not believe that can be achieved sans bloodshed when it comes to Dunya and Ro- Raskolnikov.”

“You may be right.” Sonya sighs heavily. “Waiting it out it is, then.”

“Do not worry,” Mitya says. “It will not last long.”

*

Two weeks later, Dunya shows no sign of thawing, to either Sonya or her brother. Every meal consists of frosty silence from her side of the table, broken by the occasional question directed at Mitya, and Mitya alone, who, in between times, valiantly tries to keep conversation going on his own.

Sonya had hoped that asking Mitya to talk to Dunya would produce some kind of effect, but it does not seem to have had one so far, and Rodya is no closer to breaking through either. Meanwhile, his and Mitya’s relationship remains perfectly cordial and perfectly impersonal. At least on Mitya’s side of things. Rodya seems either unable to work out what exactly he has done (which would be typical of him, Sonya must concede) or unable to get an apology in when faced with Mitya’s unrelenting amiability.

What a household they make, Sonya thinks again, sighing as she puts away groceries that they do not, perhaps, need urgently, but which provided a convenient excuse to get out of the house. At least, though, with no one speaking, there is not a chance for an argument. Or at least so she thinks, until she hears the door slam and sees Dunya storming down the path from the kitchen window.

A moment later, Rodya enters the kitchen, frustration writ plain across his face. “I cannot believe her,” he mutters, grabbing a glass from the shelf and putting it down heavily on the table. “She is still insisting that she will go meet these lawyers next month. On her own! She will not even take Mitya with her.”

“Maybe you should just let her be, then,” Sonya offers. But she knows Rodya will not really be listening. (She wonders, abruptly, cruelly perhaps, if he has ever really listened to her.)

“She is my sister! I promised I would take care of her and that is what I plan to do. It is only through luck that she is not going to meet _that man_ anymore.” As he fumes, he busies himself preparing tea. Sonya watches him, carefully.

“She is a grown woman,” she says.

“That does not mean she knows what is good for her,” Rodya grumbles and just his saying it infuriates her.

“And you _do_?” By the tone of her voice, Rodya seems to realise he has mistepped. Sonya is the most easygoing of them all, least likely to raise her voice in anger, but right now? She does not know what she might do.

“I did not mean that,” he says, placing the tea he has made on the table, raising his hands as if to try and placate her. “I merely meant— I am her brother. Of course I am going to worry about her and of course I am not going to want her to put herself in danger like this but—”

“I think your first step in getting her forgiveness is going to be accepting that she is her own person who is perfectly capable of making such decisions herself,” Sonya interrupts sharply. “You are worried, I know. I am worried too, and I am sure Mitya is also, but we cannot stop her doing these things. Because we love her, we may want to, but…” She pauses and exhales, feeling her shoulders drop. “We are only going to drive her away with that kind of love.”

For once, Rodya appears to take in what she is saying — perhaps because he has never truly seen her angered before. Sonya hardly dares believe it. “I know that, really,” he says quietly after a moment. “But—” he sighs. “But it is so hard to talk to her to tell her that, and then we just end up arguing anyway.” Some of Sonya’s anger ebbs away at the tone of his voice.

“Have you yet apologised?” Sonya asks. Rodya looks away. “Rodya!” Sonya cries. “If you do not apologise, how do you expect her to even start to forgive you!” The ebb of her anger did not last long.

“It is not like you have got any further having apologised,” Rodya says mulishly. He is like a child, Sonya could swear.

“Did you not hear a word I just said?” Chastened, Rodya glances down at his hands. Sonya sighs. “And I suppose you haven’t apologised to Mitya yet, either.”

“Apologise? To Mit— Razumikhin? What for?”

“Rodya,” Sonya hisses, anger back in full force. “Are you serious?” She flings her arms in the air and Rodya looks at her as though worried for her sanity. “If you had but _apologised_ we might have some peace in this household, but no. _No._ You cannot even do that!” She pauses to suck in a breath. “And you do not even see anything _wrong_ with that.”

“I—” Rodya starts, but Sonya slaps a hand over his mouth to cut him off.

“If the next words out of your mouth are not ‘I am sorry’, then I will make you sorry, so help me God,” she snarls. She does not know exactly where this fury has come from, only that it is there now, shooting through her, and that Rodya is to be its target.

He is taken aback by this and she can understand that. But perhaps this is not only anger at Rodya. Perhaps it is anger towards herself as well, for hurting Dunya in the way she did. At Dunya too, a little, although she knows it is irrational. Dunya does not owe her forgiveness, after all.

She feels her rage subside.

“I am sorry?” Rodya says tentatively, forcing her attention back to him. “I did not realise— it did not occur to me that I ought. Apologise that is.” He winces, seemingly recognising just how callous he sounds. “I cannot be sorry for being so worried over Dunya,” he continues. “But I should not have expressed it how I did?” Sonya nods slowly.

“You know it is not me you should be telling this to,” she says. Rodya winces again and Sonya sighs, resting her hand lightly on his. “She will not listen, I know. She does not listen to me a whole lot either.”

Rodya turns his hand over and squeezes Sonya’s fingers lightly, before bringing her hand to his mouth and pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles.

There is a sharp inhale of breath behind them and they look up to see Mitya in the doorway. He has a strange look on his face, but only for a brief moment, so brief that Sonya wonders whether she was imagining it.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” he says, a little stiffly it seems.

“No, no,” Rodya says hastily, letting go of Sonya’s hand. “There was nothing to disturb! We were merely discussing how we might — how _I_ might — go about regaining Dunya’s favour.”

“Ah.” It is odd, and Sonya admits she would likely not have noticed if she had not been so intently watching him, but Mitya’s expression seems to simultaneously relax and tighten. As if he had been expecting a different sort of discussion, and is thus relieved, but at the same time, the actual conversation was not to his liking.

“Are you alright, Sonya?” Rodya asks.

Sonya jerks back into the present with a start. “What?”

“You were just frowning rather intently at Dmitry Prokofych,” Rodya explains. “I almost thought we might have to contend with yet more discord in this house.”

“Oh,” Sonya replies. “Sorry, I was just thinking about something. I did not mean to be glaring at you so, Mitya. Come, sit.” She gestures for him to seat himself beside her and, after a moment of hesitation, he acquieses.

“I have not seen you much in the last few days,” Rodya comments lightly and if Sonya thought she could feel the tension radiating off Mitya before, now it becomes almost palpable.

“I have been a little busy,” he replies, in a way that sounds as if he is gauging what to say.

“I thought you had finished your latest translation,” Rodya continues, seemingly oblivious to Mitya’s apparent unease. Sonya might almost believe it, but for the glint she spots in Rodya’s eye. Curious, she leans forward a little.

“I received another.”

“So soon? Do you not usually have a few weeks in between?”

“Not this time, no.”

“It is only… I do not recall we have received any post recently.” For a long moment, Mitya does not speak. “So you _are_ avoiding me,” Rodya says into the silence.

“I am not avoiding you,” Mitya counters immediately. So quickly, in fact, that Sonya can tell it is a lie. Rodya scoffs. Mitya glances down at the tabletop.

“Do not lie to me, Dmitry Prokofych.” He hesitates, as if something has occurred to him that he would rather not voice. Quietly, he asks, “Dunya has not asked you not to speak with me?”

“No,” Mitya says, looking up suddenly in surprise. “She would not tell me not to speak to you out of her own spite.”

“Then, did I do something wrong? Or say something?”

“No, no, it is nothing.”

“Mitya, you are avoiding me and I wish to know why so I can make it right!” Rodya cries. If Sonya had not been sat next to Mitya, she is sure she would not have noticed his reaction to the name. But she feels him jolt next to her, as if snatching his hand away from a flame.

 _Interesting,_ she thinks.

“It is truly nothing, Rodion Romanovich,” he says, softly. “I promise you.” Rodya looks frustrated, as though he does not believe a word coming out of Mitya’s mouth right now, but he sits back, hands splayed on the table.

“Okay,” he replies, equally soft. “I trust you.” Mitya’s lips quirk up in a smile. “How is your breadmaking progressing?” Rodya asks, in a transparent attempt to change the subject. Mitya relaxes visibly beside Sonya.

“I have not done so much recently,” he confesses.

“Oh!” Sonya says, eager to further dissolve any tension between them, to keep this warm sense of closeness alive. “We could do some right now!”

“Let us make it a contest,” Rodya suggests. “Best loaf wins.”

“And who will judge this contest?” Mitya asks. “Are you implying we might judge it ourselves, because I am not sure I trust you on that.” Rodya gasps in mock offence. It is as light as Sonya has seen the both of them for weeks, this moment right now. She wants to wrap it up and savour it forever.

“Do you impugn my honour?” he asks. Mitya pauses a moment, a smirk playing across his lips.

“Yes,” he says eventually. “I do.”

“Right,” Rodya says standing and placing his hands on the table. “I am going to show you. I will make the best bread any of you have seen. And it will be objectively the best so you cannot accuse me of cheating!”

“What about my bread?” Sonya interjects. They both turn to her. “Are you saying that your bread can beat mine?” A wide grin spreads across Mitya’s face.

“Yes, Rodion Romanovich,” he says gleefully. “Is that what you are saying?” The look on Rodya’s face tells Sonya he knows he has got himself into some kind of trouble here but, being so stubborn, he sets his hands on his hips and nods once.

“Yes,” he says, firmly. “I am.”

And that is how, an hour later, when they hear the door open and close as Dunya returns, they find themselves coated in flour, the kitchen a mess and the bread all but forgotten.

“Stop, stop!” Sonya shrieks as Rodya approaches with a handful of flour. But she is giggling as she says it.

A floorboard creaks and they look up as one, sheepishly, to see Dunya stood in the doorway. Sonya fancies that she can see a small quirk to Dunya’s lips, as if she is trying to keep herself from laughing at the scene before her.

“Well,” she says, dryly. “I see you had a productive morning.” Sonya’s heart gives a leap of joy.

“We were teaching your brother how to make bread,” Mitya tells her. He neglects to mention that he was the instigator of all this mess. Rodya scoffs.

“As if you could!”

“It is truly a shame we do not have such examples of your breadmaking prowess so Dunya could act as our judge,” Sonya says, solemnly. Rodya turns to her with a glare. She smiles at him sweetly.

“Oh, Rodya would never have won your contest,” Dunya says airily, but Sonya can see the curl of mischief at the corner of her mouth. “He was disallowed from our mother’s kitchen for managing to burn water.”

“Vicious lies and calumny!” Rodya cries, but it is too late now. Sonya has this information and she will never let him forget it.

But for all Rodya makes a show of protesting, Sonya can tell he is pleased. If Dunya is teasing him like this, it must mean she has thawed. Sonya does not know why — perhaps she had some kind of epiphany on her walk — but she does not care.

The house, she thinks guiltily, breathes a palpable sigh of relief with it.

“You keep telling yourself that,” Dunya says. “Maybe one day you will believe it.”

“I think she has you there,” Mitya tells Rodya, placing a hand on his shoulder. A puff of flour rises from his clothing and Mitya pulls back. “Maybe we should start cleaning up.”

“Maybe you should. Meanwhile, I am going to pack.” Sonya looks up. Dunya may have spoken this, but she is hesitating in the doorway still.

“How about I come and help?” she suggests. She can hear the hopeful note in her own voice. “I am not so covered in flour as these two.”

“Yes,” Dunya says, after a moment. “I would appreciate it.” Sonya has to clench her fists to keep from punching the air in celebration. “I…” Dunya continues, then trails off. She takes a breath, as though steeling herself for something. “I am leaving tomorrow on the early coach.” The buoyant sensation in Sonya’s chest deflates suddenly.

“Oh,” she says. “So soon?”

“I am seeing the lawyers about Svidrigailov’s will in three weeks. They are willing to come as far as Chelyabinsk, but I must meet them there so…” She trails off.

“So you need to leave now,” Sonya finishes for her. She breathes in, steadies herself. “Well,” she says, a falsely cheerful tone to her voice. “We had best get you packed then.”

*

Early the next morning, Sonya stands outside in the cool air, shawl wrapped tight around her, waiting with Dunya for the cart that will take her to the nearest town. From there, she plans to catch a coach and make her way east, to Chelyabinsk. The morning dew on the trees glistens in the sun. Next to her, Dunya yawns.

They had not talked so much the previous night, not for want of Sonya trying. Dunya seems willing to let her anger thaw, enough that they might converse again as friends, but she does not yet seem forgiving. And now, it will be six weeks before they see one another again, and Sonya cannot help wishing that she could go back and change it all.

She turns to Dunya, hoping to express just that, but the sunlight playing across Dunya’s face makes her breath catch. “I will miss you,” she says softly, instead. Dunya turns to her.

“I should hope so,” she tells her.

Sonya opens her mouth to reply but, as they hear the cart turn down onto their road, Mitya and Rodya emerge from the house, and she loses her chance.

“Stay safe,” Mitya murmurs to Dunya, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Dunya relaxes minutely against him, barely noticeable unless someone had been watching for it. Sonya feels a pang of something inexplicable in her chest.

“If you need us, just send word,” Rodya says, when it is his turn to say goodbye. Dunya inhales sharply, about to argue, before he raises a hand. “I know, I know. All I am saying is that I am here for you.” Dunya nods, a little shakily, and lets Rodya press a kiss to her forehead.

And then it is Sonya’s go.

Dunya stands in front of her, mouth set like a small child trying their best to be brave. Sonya tugs her into an embrace, savouring the warmth of Dunya’s body against her own in the chill of the morning.

“See you in six weeks,” she says, lips almost touching the bare skin of Dunya’s neck. In her arms, Dunya shudders.

But then she is pulling away, far too soon, climbing aboard the cart, as Rodya and Mitya lift her trunk alongside. And before Sonya knows it, the cart is leaving, Dunya twisting around in her seat to watch them all, waving, until they turn the corner and are out of sight.

*

Afterwards, Sonya finds herself at a loss. It is not as though she had been spending hours of her day in Dunya’s company before now, but with Dunya’s departure, she does not know what to do. She hovers around the house, picking up items and placing them back down, two inches to the right, flitting from room to room. Neither Rodya nor Mitya pays her much mind, which she is glad for. She does not know how she would answer were they to ask anything.

At midday, she decides suddenly to go out. The sky is mostly clear, the occasional cloud scudding across high above, a gentle breeze winding its way through the trees, so she pulls on a shawl and picks up a basket. The road from their house into the village is clear as she strides along it. Dunya leaving feels like losing a limb, feels like being knocked off-balance, and she does not want to think about why that is.

“Sofya Semyonovna,” a voice calls out and she starts violently. “Oh, I do apologise for giving you a scare, my dear.”

“Oh! Varvara Ivanovna!” she says, turning to face the woman. “How lovely to see you!”

Varvara Ivanovna links her arm with Sonya’s, forcing her to walk alongside. “I was just on my way to visit you,” she says. Through some kind of sorcery, she has manoeuvred them to be walking in the direction of her own house. The opposite direction to which Sonya intended to go. “I have developed a new pastry recipe,” Varvara Ivanovna continues, oblivious to Sonya’s reluctance to come with her. “You must try it at once, and tell me if it is superior to that Ludmila Vasiliyevna’s.”

“I could not possibly…” Sonya starts, but trails off at Varvara Ivanovna’s glower.

“That woman still claims I stole her family recipe,” she mutters. This is a story Sonya has heard many times over, and has no desire to hear again. Unfortunately, she does not seem to have a choice in the matter. “As if I would stoop so low as to steal from that old crone! No! My recipe is mine alone, passed down through generations.”

“Of course, Varvara Ivanovna,” Sonya murmurs, but Varvara Ivanovna is not paying the slightest bit of attention.

“She drives custom away from my bakery with her lies. I have half a mind to call the magistrates on her.”

“Oh,” Sonya interjects. “Do not do that! They might see it as a waste of their time and then you would be the one in trouble.” Varvara Ivanovna huffs, but she does not deny the assertion.

By now they are almost at her home, a small squat building, squeezed in between the shop her husband runs and a closed-up inn. Outside the door sits a skinny ginger cat, which Varvara Ivanovna shoos away with a flick of her foot. “My husband does insist on feeding the mangy beasts,” she grumbles, as she leads Sonya into the house, arm still tightly wrapped up in Sonya’s own.

For a moment, Sonya thinks somewhat hysterically of the witches she was told stories of as a child, who enticed people into their homes, only to eat them. But for the fact Varvara Ivanovna’s house does not stand on a chicken leg, she might almost believe that is what is happening here.

“Varvara Ivanovna,” she tries. “I really cannot stay long.”

“Oh, I will not keep you.” Varvara Ivanovna waves a hand at her airily. “I merely need you to give your opinion on my latest recipe.”

With a sigh, Sonya resigns herself to staying for at least half an hour. Varvara Ivanovna is unlikely to accept a simple response as to the quality of her pastries. Not unless Sonya invents some urgent errand, which Varvara Ivanovna is highly likely to find out is a falsehood when she asks around.

Varvara Ivanovna enters the kitchen, Sonya trailing behind, and places the samovar on the stove to warm it up. “Come, come,” she says. “Sit.”

Reluctantly, Sonya seats herself on one of the stools at the table, shrugging off her shawl as she does so. The kitchen is hot, warmed constantly throughout the day by the stove. Varvara Ivanova does not seem to notice the heat, still wearing her coat despite it.

“Tea?” she asks, already reaching for two glasses.

“Just a little,” Sonya says, not wanting to be rude. After all, she has carefully worked to keep herself in Varvara Ivanovna’s good books, even if no one else in the household has. Her shop is the only one in the village and it would not do to have them be somehow blacklisted because she has been offended, even if, deep down, Sonya thinks her feud with Ludmila Vasiliyevna is a tiresome and pointless thing.

“Come, come,” Varvara Ivanovna says, placing a glass of tea and a pastry in front of her. “Tell me how you like it.”

Under the woman’s eagle-eyed gaze, Sonya picks up the pastry and takes a small bite. It is fresh and crumbly in her mouth, and so incredibly salty, she almost spits it right back out.

“Wow, Varvara Ivanovna,” she says, trying desperately to swallow. “You can certainly tell this recipe is… different.”

“Yes, yes,” Varvara Ivanovna smiles triumphantly. “It was my own dear mother’s, but I adapted it ever so slightly. You see, we do not get that much sugar sent out here. So I substituted half of the sugar in the recipe for extra salt.”

 _This has to be a joke,_ Sonya thinks, crushing the urge to laugh hysterically. It must be. There is no way on God’s green earth that Varvara Ivanovna believes salt to be an acceptable substitute for sugar. It cannot be.

“You do not say…” she murmurs, picking up her glass and taking a gulp of tea. “How… enterprising of you.”

“Yes, it is, is it not!” Varvara Ivanovna, having received her praise, false as it may be, bustles around the kitchen with a smug smile on her face. “There is no way that crone Ludmila Vasiliyevna can claim I stole _this_ recipe!”

Sonya cannot, in all honesty, say she thinks Ludmila Vasiliyevna would be remotely tempted to. In fact, Ludmila Vasiliyevna may well laugh herself to death just hearing about this.

“I am sure she will not,” she offers tentatively.

“They will sell like fresh bread rolls and then she will be laughing on the other side of her face!”

It is like a disaster waiting to happen, one Sonya can see coming from a mile off.

“Are you sure that is wise?” she asks. “Do you not wish for more time to perfect your recipe?” Varvara Ivanovna turns to her. “Not that it is not already wonderful, of course,” she adds hastily. “But would your victory not taste the sweeter for being so… so…”

Thankfully, Varvara Ivanovna interrupts her now, because she is not sure how she would have finished that sentence.

“Yes,” she muses. “Yes, I think you are right, Sofya Semyonovna. It would be much more satisfying. She would drive herself crazy trying to figure out my secret recipe.”

Privately, Sonya thinks that is somewhat of a wishful thought. Out loud, she says, “Of course, Varvara Ivanovna.” She picks again at the pastry, trying to seem as if she is enjoying the taste of it in her mouth, before hastily grabbing her glass and gulping down some tea. Varvara Ivanovna is watching her beadily, as though she is not showing nearly enough gratification.

Sonya cannot physically bring herself to finish this pastry, though, so she resigns herself to making up an excuse to leave. She makes a show of checking the clock over the door. “Oh, Varvara Ivanovna,” she says, making to rise to her feet. “I am so sorry, I just realised I am running late for an errand. I told Rodya I would be back in plenty of time, but…” she trails off, hoping that Varvara Ivanovna, with her old-fashioned views of a woman’s duty to her husband, will fill in the blanks.

“Of course, of course,” Varvara Ivanovna says. “I do not wish to keep you! Only, let me just fill up a little basket and you can take this batch of pastries back to him.”

This is like something out of Sonya’s worst nightmare but, since she cannot say no without mortally offending the woman, she has no choice but to accept. “I would love to,” she says, lying through her teeth. Varvara Ivanovna beams, and Sonya feels a slight pang of guilt at the deception.

But really, she is just doing her best to save anyone else from having to suffer this recipe.

As she is leaving Varvara Ivanovna’s house, she spots Ludmila Vasiliyevna across the street. She is looking the other way, peering curiously into a window, but Sonya freezes. “Goodbye, Varvara Ivanovna!” she says hastily, scarcely turning to look at her, and hurries away, in the opposite direction as Ludmila Vasiliyevna and hoping that she has not been seen.

It is not that she does not like Ludmila Vasiliyevna, of course. She is, in fact, just as friendly with the woman as Rodya, but she has not exactly been honest with her. Nor with Varvara Ivanovna, for that matter.

Because, knowing just how fiercely they have been feuding, she has simply not told either about her friendship with the other. It is bad, she knows. It is something her mother would have scolded her for, this lying. But, really, she thinks, it is just a little lie, one told to keep the peace, rather than for another, more nefarious purpose.

Surely she can be forgiven that.

Ludmila Vasiliyevna may well find the whole thing hilarious, but she does not wish to test that assumption, not least because Varvara Ivanovna would find it decidedly less so.

And hence why she is scurrying away from Varvara Ivanovna’s house, as though from the scene of a crime (a fact which she cannot fail to see some form of irony in). The basket of pastries bumps against her leg as she all but runs back home.

As she comes up to the door, she looks around and, seeing no one, scatters the pastries onto the garden for the birds.

“What are you doing?” Mitya asks from behind her and she lets out a screech in surprise.

“Mitya! Must you sneak up on me like that!”

“I am sorry,” he says, but the little smirk on his face says otherwise. “What are you doing, though?”

“These are Varvara Ivanovna’s pastries,” Sonya says darkly, as though that explains everything. Mitya just looks confused, so Sonya sighs and explains, “She decided that, because she did not have sufficient sugar for the recipe, to add extra salt.”

“Right,” Mitya says slowly.

“And she gave this batch to me to bring home to you and Rodya, so really, I am doing you both a huge favour by feeding it to the birds.”

“One for which we shall forever be grateful,” Mitya agrees solemnly. “But what shall we say when Varvara Ivanovna asks for our opinions?”

“Well, you shall simply have to lie,” Sonya tells him, placing her hands on her hips. “Do not worry, I know what best to tell her.”

“And what if she insists on giving us more of these pastries? Because we have appreciated them so much?” Sonya lets out a huff.

“Mitya, I have been managing this for much longer than you have. Trust that I have a plan in place for that very eventuality.”

“Oh,” Mitya raises an eyebrow. “Do tell. Because I could have sworn you were close with Ludmila Vasiliyevna as well, and they are not the friendliest with one another.”

“They might not each know that…” Sonya hedges. Mitya lets out a bark of laughter.

“Oh, Sonya, you have been holding out on me! Did Rodion Romanovich invite them to your wedding at your suggestion? I did not think he could not have thought to do so himself.”

“I believed I could keep them apart,” Sonya admits. Mitya looks positively gleeful right now, so Sonya whacks him gently on the arm. “You cannot tell him. You cannot tell anyone.”

“You need not worry about that,” Mitya tells her. “I think I will just sit back and enjoy the show.” Sonya rolls her eyes, but even she has to admit this situation is more than a little funny.

“Alright, alright,” she says. “Laugh all you like, but it is by keeping on Varvara Ivanovna’s good side that we are still able to buy food!”

“I am sure, if it came to it, that we could just send Rodya to bat his eyelashes at her,” Mitya muses. “I imagine that would work.”

“I think she might come to hate me all the more, for sending Rodya out to run the errands I should be doing,” Sonya says dryly. “And we cannot send Dunya out! Can you imagine!”

“We might be barred for life from the shop,” Mitya agrees.

“So you see, this must be kept the utmost secret.”

“Hey! What about me?” Sonya looks at him, making a show of pursing her lips and placing her hands on her hips as though in thought. “Okay, okay,” Mitya says with a huffed laugh. “You are about to say I am too forgetful for it, I can tell.”

“I was not… _not_ about to say that…”

“Say what?” They turn to see Rodya coming up the garden path.

“Your wife” — a barely noticeable hesitation — “was merely about to accuse me of forgetfulness.” If Sonya had not been watching Rodya, she would not have seen his eyes narrow ever so slightly.

“My wife would be right,” Rodya says casually. “Remember how many lectures you missed in St. Petersburg?”

“You are one to talk!”

“I did not forget them, I simply refused to go. You, on the other hand… I seem to recall you missed one entirely because you were so caught up in a butterfly exhibition.”

“It was a very good butterfly exhibition!”

“I am sure it was,” Sonya says soothingly, placing a hand on Mitya’s arm. “But how much of it do you recall?” For a moment, Mitya’s mouth opens and closes speechlessly. Then he lets out an incredulous laugh.

“Alright, alright,” he waves a hand. “But that was because I was distracted by something else!”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Rodya says cheerfully, slinging an arm across Mitya’s shoulders and the other around Sonya’s waist. Together, a sort of six-legged creature, they stumble towards the house.

*

The weeks without Dunya seem to pick up pace after that unsettled first day and, before Sonya knows it, she has been gone for three of them. “She should have reached Chelyabinsk by now,” Rodya remarks one evening. Sonya’s heart flutters with the anticipation of her return, which is closer now and yet feels indeterminably far away.

And then, a week later, a letter arrives. Dunya must have sent it by express post, for it to arrive so soon. Sonya opens it with shaking hands, inexplicably fearing the worst.

 _Dearest Sonya,_ it reads.

_You will be pleased to hear that I reached Chelyabinsk with little bother. I wonder if you recall it at all from your journey out here; it seems scarcely changed to me. I am writing you this having just arrived at the inn where I shall stay while in town. Tomorrow I meet with the lawyers and, all things going well, I shall hopefully depart home the day after._

_I miss you, dearest Sonya. And, I suppose, my brother and Mitya as well. I did not depart from you all on the best terms and I have regretted it every day since. I cannot truly express how sorry I am, not until I am back in your presence, but know that I am._

_Can you forgive me, dearest Sonya?_

_I apologise that I cannot write more now; it has been a long and tiring journey, and I feel myself falling asleep as I write these words. By the time you receive this letter, I will be on my way home._

_yours in all,  
_ _Dunya_

Something about the letter makes Sonya’s heart race. She is clutching the paper tight, crinkling the sides as she reads the paragraphs over and over.

 _Dearest Sonya,_ Dunya had written, and something slots into place with those words. _Oh,_ she thinks. _Oh, oh._

All of a sudden, the restlessness she has been feeling makes sense. She is in love with Dunya. She has probably been in love with her for a while, now she thinks about it. She cannot place the time or the look that led her to this juncture. It is as if she has been in love with Dunya the whole time, and knows no other state of being.

Her legs are a little wobbly beneath her and she stumbles over to the sofa, sitting down with a thud. She feels a strange combination of elation and despair. She may love Dunya, but what if Dunya does not love her back? And what about Rodya and Mitya?

She tips her head forward into the heels of her hands.

“Sonya?” It is Mitya, standing in the doorway. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” she says, hastily, smoothing down her skirts and giving what she knows must be a shaky smile. “It is a letter from Dunya,” she tells him, gesturing with the crumpled pages.

“Dunya? Is she alright?” He asks so frantically that Sonya stands and hurries over to him.

“Yes, yes, she is fine,” she says quickly. “She wrote to say she had reached Chelyabinsk safely and without trouble. And that, by the time her letter arrived here she would be on her way home.”

“May I read the letter?” Sonya bites her lip, a little reluctant to hand it over, but after a moment, she does. She watches nervously as he reads it, worried nonsensically that he might look at her and know everything.

When he finishes, he looks up, giving her an assessing look. It is less the kind of look that says he knows her secrets, though, and more one that says he is weighing up whether to tell her something. Sonya thinks back to the times she has seen him glancing at Rodya and then away again, to the strange tension that has existed between them.

“Mitya,” she says quietly. “Do you love Dunya? As a husband might love his wife, I mean.” She can hear her heart thumping in her chest as he stands there, silent.

And then he sighs, and she watches the tension she did not realise was there draining from his shoulders. “No,” he says, just as softly. “I do not.”

Sonya’s heartbeat becomes almost a roar, drowning out everything. She wets her lips. “Oh,” is all she manages.

“We have… an understanding,” Mitya continues. “I do not love her, not as a wife, and she does not love me, except perhaps as a brother.” As though hypnotised by his words, Sonya nods. “Might I ask why the interest?”

Frozen, Sonya cannot find the words to respond, but something about her expression must clue Mitya in. He looks almost happy about it, to her confusion. “When she returns, I think you ought to talk to her about this,” he offers, a little cryptically. Sonya’s brow crinkles in a frown.

With a smile, Mitya leans in and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “You will be fine,” he murmurs. “The both of you.”

*

The next two weeks become a blur, filled only by the fizzle of anticipation that steadily builds in Sonya’s stomach. Every day brings Dunya closer and closer, almost within reach. Sonya does not know, of course, the exact day on which she will return, so every morning she wakes with the hope that today will be the day.

Meanwhile, the weather has turned cold and wet. The part of Sonya that is more rational, that is not waiting desperately for Dunya to come home, hopes that she is not trying to journey in it. It is miserable, grey clouds lurking overhead like wraiths. Sonya flits around the house restlessly, annoying both Mitya and Rodya, she is sure.

She glances out of the kitchen window and watches the sheets of rain blow across their garden. It is mid-afternoon now, exactly two weeks and one day after Sonya received the letter. Not that she has been counting the days with particular fervour. Not really. She just happens to know it is that long.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the clatter of something on the doorstep. Confused, she walks out into the hallway. “What was that?” Rodya asks, from the doorway to the sitting room.

“I do not know,” she tells him, as she opens the door to see Dunya.

A very wet Dunya, who seems to be swaying a little on her feet. “Hello,” she says, with a smile, and promptly collapses into Sonya’s arms. Sonya catches her with a cry.

Within a second, Rodya is there, lifting Dunya into his arms. “Can you get her bags?” he asks. “I will take her upstairs.”

“Yes,” Sonya says, a little breathlessly. “Yes, I have them.”

“Let me help,” Mitya says, startling her. She assumes he must have heard the commotion from his study. Together, they lift up Dunya’s bags, which are themselves sodden with water.

“Put them in the kitchen,” Sonya directs. “They will start to dry by the stove and we can empty them later.”

Having done so, they hurry upstairs, to where Rodya has lain Dunya out on her bed. He has removed her soaking coat and shoes already. Without a word, Sonya takes over the remaining items of clothing. “Fetch some more blankets,” she says. Her hand brushes against the skin of Dunya’s neck as she unbuttons her dress and she flinches at the heat. “And call for a doctor. I think she has a fever.”

“I will go out for the doctor,” Mitya says with a sharp nod. “You both stay here.” He puts a hand on Rodya’s shoulder and squeezes gently. “She will be alright,” he tells him.

Rodya lets out a shaky sigh and gives him a weak smile.

A moment later, they are both gone. Sonya finishes undoing the buttons on Dunya’s dress and pulls the heavy fabric down over her arms. Dunya murmurs something inaudibly. Her eyes are open, but unfocused. Sonya reaches up and rests a hand on her forehead. It burns under her palm.

“You are going to be alright,” she mutters, pushing Dunya’s hair off her face.

“Sonya?” Dunya mumbles.

“I am here, Dunya,” Sonya says, working Dunya’s arms out of the sleeves of her dress and pulling the bodice down past her hips. The dress has soaked through to Dunya’s undergarments, so Sonya removes those as well. Dunya shivers suddenly, at odds with the heat of her skin. Hastily, Sonya retrieves a dry nightgown and props Dunya up gently to pull it on. Blearily, and only half in control of her limbs, Dunya helps.

“There we go,” Sonya murmurs when she is done. Rodya returns, clutching a pile of blankets and, between them, they bundle Dunya into bed. She looks so small and wan against the sheets and Sonya grasps at Rodya’s hand, immeasurably glad that he is next to her, that she is not alone. All they can do now is wait.

*

Mitya returns with the doctor within half an hour. The man bustles into the room, all but shoving aside Sonya and Rodya to get to his patient. Mitya follows more slowly.

“Ludmila Vasiliyevna is downstairs,” he tells Sonya. “She caught me on the way to the doctor, and offered to bring you her famous soup recipe.” He hesitates. “We should leave the doctor some space to work.” The doctor grunts, but it is hard to tell whether he does so in agreement with Mitya’s statement or otherwise. Mitya takes Sonya’s hand loosely. “Rodion Romanovich can stay. Let us go down.”

Sonya is reluctant, but she lets Mitya lead her from the room and trails him down the stairs and into the kitchen where Ludmila Vasiliyevna is pulling out pots.

“Good,” she says, seeing Sonya in the doorway. “You are here. Come, I shall teach you my soup recipe.”

Something about her brisk attitude calms Sonya. She has been on edge since Dunya’s collapse, but Ludmila Vasiliyevna has so easily taken charge it has settled her.

“Thank you, Ludmila Vasiliyevna,” she says, and she can hear the raw gratitude in her voice.

“No matter, no matter,” Ludmila Vasiliyevna waves her off. She picks up a knife and starts to chop up some potatoes. “Now, what is this I hear about Varvara Ivanovna’s new recipe?”

There is a second of silence.

“Her… what?” Sonya tries. She can see Mitya out of the corner of her eye, smothering a smile.

“You cannot deceive me, my girl,” Ludmila Vasiliyevna says. “I saw you leaving that woman’s house the other week. I have no doubt you know exactly what I am talking about.”

“Maybe?” Sonya offers. “I did not know how to say no to her, Ludmila Vasiliyevna.”

There is a spark in Ludmila Vasiliyevna’s eye as she says, “Let me tell you a secret, my dear Sofya Semyonovna. There is no recipe.”

“No recipe?” Sonya asks, confused. Mitya leans forward.

“I was bored one day,” Ludmila Vasiliyevna confesses, as if she is not about to turn Sonya’s world on its head. “And Varvara Ivanovna is such a dour thing, I just wanted some fun. So, I suggested she might have… appropriated one of my recipes. Of course, I did not expect for her to take it quite as she did, and I did not expect it to become such a feud! But once it did, well… I found it quite exciting.”

“You…” Mitya says. “You started it all? On a whim?”

“No doubt you have noticed there is not a lot to do around here,” Ludmila Vasiliyevna tells him, dryly.

“So, this whole time, when I have been so careful not to let you each know I was friendly with the other, you would not have cared at all?” Sonya asks in disbelief.

“I have to admit, I did get some amusement out of seeing you so at pains to hide it.”

Sonya throws her hands up in the air. “All this time!”

“Yes, well.” Ludmila Vasiliyevna shrugs. “Do not tell Varvara Ivanovna though. I rather enjoy getting a rise out of her.”

There is the sound of people coming down the stairs, and they all turn towards the door. “Thank you, doctor,” Sonya hears Rodya say as he shows the man out. She hurries to the kitchen doorway, just as Rodya is coming in. “Well?” she asks, impatiently, wringing her hands unconsciously.

“He says she should be fine,” Rodya tells him, and Sonya can see the worry draining out of him as he speaks. “It is hopefully just a result of travelling in such bad weather. We are to keep an eye on her, and if she does not seem to be improving within a few days, to call him again, but he can see no reason why she would not.”

“Thank God,” Mitya murmurs behind her. Sonya’s legs feel weak and she grasps the door frame to keep upright.

“We ought to make sure she is drinking water, and taking in some food,” Rodya continues.

“Well, it is a good thing I am about to put this soup on,” Ludmila Vasiliyevna says. Rodya starts.

“Oh, Ludmila Vasiliyevna,” he says. “I do apologise, I did not see you there.”

“No matter,” she tells him, turning to add vegetables to a pot. “I know you must be worried for your sister. Let me put this on to boil, and then I will be out of your way.”

“You are welcome to stay,” Rodya tries, but it is patently obvious he is only saying so to be polite.

“Pah! You do not need to force yourself to be so mannerly to me, young man.” She sprinkles a last touch of seasoning into the pot and nods, satisfied. “Let it simmer for an hour and it will be perfect,” she says, picking up her shawl and coming over to Sonya. She rests a hand on her arm. “I am sure Avdotya Romanovna will be right as rain in a few days’ time.”

“Thank you, Ludmila Vasiliyevna,” Sonya says, gratitude bleeding clearly into her voice.

“Any time, my dear,” she says. “If you need me, you know where to find me.” And, before any one of them can offer to walk her out, she is gone, front door closing with a click behind her.

*

Sonya spends a good part of the next two days sat at Dunya’s bedside. If she is honest, it is not solely to keep an eye on Dunya — it keeps her mostly out of Rodya’s way too. She worries, perhaps unnecessarily, that he will take one look at her and realise she no longer loves him, that she loves Dunya instead.

She is fairly certain she ends up falling asleep there at one point, head in arms next to Dunya’s hip, but she wakes up in her own bed, one of Rodya or Mitya having carried her to her room. It is now the third day since Dunya’s collapse, and she has woken a few times, bleary and out of it, to swallow down some soup and take a sip of water. Her fever has not worsened, but Sonya does not think it has improved either.

Dunya mumbles something inaudible as Sonya watches her. She had come up with some more soup, hoping that Dunya would be awake again, but she is still somewhat restlessly asleep.

“How is she?” Rodya asks from the doorway, and Sonya starts.

“No better, no worse.” She shrugs. Rodya enters, walking over to the other side of the bed and placing a hand on Dunya’s forehead.

“She feels a little cooler,” he murmurs. “Maybe the fever has broken?” A wave of hope hits Sonya so hard it makes her breathless. She squeezes her hands together tightly so that Rodya does not see them shaking.

“Are you alright, Sofya Semyonovna?” he asks quietly. Unable to help herself, she looks up to meet his gaze. He seems worried, but nothing else.

“I…” she begins, but finds she cannot finish. Her face crumples as tears sting her eyes, unbidden. Rodya comes around the bed in three paces and tugs her into his arms. She shakes with the effort of stifling her sobs.

“Dunya will be well, Sonya,” Rodya whispers. “You will see. She is stubborn like that.” That prompts a laugh out of her.

“I know,” she whispers, then sniffles. “I know, but…” She takes a deep breath and pulls back from his chest. “Rodya, I love her.” Rodya looks at her assessingly. Her heart stutters.

“I thought you might,” he says eventually. He brushes her hair from her face. Sonya finds herself struggling to process this.

“You… thought I might?”

“I am not all that oblivious, Sofya Semyonovna,” Rodya says, as if in reproach, but the smile at the corner of his lips gives him away.

“But _I_ did not even know until this last month!” Sonya cries. She wipes at her face, smudging the tear tracks.

“You did not?” Rodya asks. “But I thought… You so clearly did not love me as you used to, I thought…”

“What do you mean, I did not love you as I used to?” Every word that comes out of Rodya’s mouth at this moment is confusing her further and further.

“You treated me in the same way as you treat Mitya,” Rodya tells her. “As a brother. And we have not exactly been intimate since our wedding night. And the way you looked at her, the way you were so upset by her not talking to you...” Sonya finds herself speechless now. He is right, she can see that. Laid out like this, it has become clear.

“Oh,” she says. Rodya laughs.

“ _Oh,_ she says,” he mocks.

“But why are you not more angry?” she asks, demands almost. He shrugs.

“I realised that I did not love you quite like that, either,” he admits. “What we had, that was brought on by the intensity of all we had gone through. I thought I loved you as a wife, but after a few weeks out of prison, I looked at everything with new eyes.” He falls silent. They let the quiet drift between them for a long moment.

“What if she does not love me back?” Sonya blurts out. Rodya rubs his hands up and down her arms.

“Then we will deal with it as it comes,” he says.

There is a quiet groan from behind Sonya and she spins away from Rodya. Dunya is blinking awake slowly. “Sonya?” she croaks.

“I am here,” Sonya says, crouching down. She grasps Dunya’s hand with one of her own and squeezes, brushing hair from her face with the other. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” Dunya mumbles, although she looks more awake than she has in the past three days. “Water?” Sonya fumbles for the glass of water at Dunya’s bedside. It is placed in her hand by Rodya, and she gives him a fleeting glance of thanks before turning back to Dunya.

“You had us worried,” she murmurs as Dunya sips the water.

“Sorry,” Dunya says with a small apologetic smile.

“I am going to tell Dmitry Prokofych that you are awake,” Rodya says. Sonya looks to him, suddenly aware how complete her focus on Dunya had been. Rodya leans in and presses a kiss to Dunya’s forehead. “I am glad you are well,” he whispers.

He gives Sonya a wink as he leaves.

Sonya turns back to Dunya. She is pale and wan but she is alive and Sonya is filled with such a sense of relief that she presses her forehead to Dunya’s knuckles.

“I am sorry,” Dunya says quietly. Sonya looks up. Dunya does not meet her eyes.

“What for?” she asks.

“For how I treated you. I was so upset with what you said, but instead of telling you why I was so, I shut you out, and for that I am sorry.”

“I am sorry too,” Sonya tells her. “The question was none of my business and I should have respected that.” Dunya takes in a sharp breath. There is a pause, and Sonya feels as though she is about to tip over into the unknown. They are on the edge of something, something that there will be no going back from.

“I love you,” Dunya blurts, voice cracking. “I love you, not as a sister, but as if I were a man and you my wife. And I know you love Rodya and I have no right to burden you with this, but I love you. I could not go a day longer without telling you. That is why I forced myself home in such weather.”

For a moment, Sonya cannot speak. This is so beyond her wildest dreams that she cannot immediately grasp it.

“You do not need to say anything,” Dunya is continuing. “I know it is not welcome, but—”

“Stop,” Sonya interrupts her. Dunya does so. “You are wrong,” Sonya tells her, giddy with exhilaration. “You do not know how wrong. It is welcome; it is more than welcome.” Dunya looks at her, mouth open as though in shock. “I love you,” Sonya says. “I have loved you, perhaps forever, and I only realised while you were gone from me.” She can feel tears tracking down her cheeks again. Dunya raises a hand in wonder to brush them away.

“You love me,” she repeats, as if unable to believe it.

“Yes,” Sonya says breathlessly. “ _Yes_.” And then she is pressing a kiss to Dunya’s mouth, savage, hard and desperate, her teeth catching on Dunya’s lower lip. Dunya’s mouth opens on a gasp and Sonya inhales it, slipping her tongue between Dunya’s teeth. And when Dunya reciprocates, hands grasping, pressed up against Sonya as if she wants to be one with her, wants to consume her…

 _Oh,_ it is everything Sonya has ever dreamed of.

Dunya pulls back, face flushed and eyes glittering. Sonya rests her forehead against Dunya’s own, heart fluttering. Some of Dunya’s hair has come away from its loose plait and she pushes it aside. Dunya closes her eyes. She is breathing heavily.

“You are still tired,” Sonya murmurs.

“No,” Dunya tries to protest, but it is weak.

“Come, lie back down.”

“Only if you lie with me.” Looking at her, Sonya cannot see how she will ever be able to say no to her. So she does not even try.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes.”


	4. Raskolnikov

Raskolnikov is being lied to. He knows it. But it is not his sister or his wife who is lying to him.

It is one Dmitry Prokofych Razumikhin.

He has been lying to him for a while now. Raskolnikov knows that he has a tendency towards obliviousness, perhaps not helped by a tendency to hyperfocus on one thing to the detriment of all others. But even he can see this.

What he cannot see is how to get him to stop.

It is not that he and Razumikhin have the kind of relationship that lends itself to sharing truths. Or they have not at least in the past. Part of Raskolnikov wants it, though he knows he does not have the right to ask for it. Not after the rather large truth he kept from Razumikhin eight years previously.

But that is beside the point. In this instance, he _knows_ that what Razumikhin is not saying relates to him. It is there in the way Raskolnikov has caught him gazing in his direction more than once, though he will rarely meet his eyes, looking away as if found doing something he should not.

Sonya suggested that it was something Raskolnikov said, but he has never known Razumikhin _not_ to confront him in that case.

Raskolnikov does not like not knowing.

He has tried confronting Razumikhin himself, but all that achieved was Razumikhin’s denial that anything was wrong at all. Clearly Raskolnikov will have to be stealthier about this.

He thinks Dunya may know something, but Dunya is still recovering from her illness, and she is almost never alone, what with Sonya’s presence in her room, and Razumikhin’s visits. He cannot ask her just yet.

So his last remaining option seems to be to wait.

Galenka winds her way around his ankles and he starts, suddenly aware that he is stood in the kitchen, staring at nothing, glass of tea gone cold in his hands.

Outside, rain hammers down, much as it has done for the past few days. It is amazing, Rodya ponders idly, that in such a small house for four people as this, he still has not really managed to see any of its inhabitants besides Galenka. He crouches down and lets her butt her head against his hand.

“Oh!” He turns to see Razumikhin in the doorway.

“Dmitry Prokofych!” he says with a smile. “What a surprise! I almost thought you had somehow managed to lock yourself inside your room again.”

“That was one time,” Razumikhin grumbles. He inches his way into the room, cautiously enough that Raskolnikov takes note.

“I assume you have been working,” Raskolnikov continues. He makes a point of turning away from Razumikhin, busying his hands with brewing some more tea.

“Yes,” Razumikhin says, without a hesitation that Raskolnikov can hear. “I was… going through the accounts.” There is something more to it, Raskolnikov thinks, but he sets it aside a moment.

“For three days?” he asks, turning back to place a glass of tea on the table. He gestures for Razumikhin to sit.

Razumikhin lets out a huff, a wry grin on his face like he has been caught in a lie, and sits down. “Alright, it is a little more than the accounts.” Raskolnikov seats himself across the table from Razumikhin. A question sticks at the edge of his mind like a burr.

“It is not about Dunya and Sonya, is it?” he asks. Razumikhin’s gaze cuts sharply to his.

“About Dunya and Sonya? No, why would it be?” His brow furrows in a frown. “Wait, are you asking if I have a problem with it?”

“I wanted to be sure.”

“I do not in the slightest,” Razumikhin shrugs. Raskolnikov knows Razumikhin. He knows the look of him when he is lying, and this is not it.

“Oh,” he says, a little startled, he will admit.

“Did you think I might?” Razumikhin does not sound offended by the thought, more curious, as if sounding Raskolnikov himself out for something.

“It… occurred to me,” Raskolnikov admits. “Since I did not know exactly your feelings on the union.”

“Ah,” Razumikhin nods. “Well. I think I can clear that one up for you.” He pauses, looking abruptly nervous. “Dunya and I, we have an arrangement. She has no interest in men and I have none in women.” He says this last part fast, as though to force it out into the open. His shoulders tense. “We married because she could not come out here alone, and neither of us would ask anything of the other they were not willing to give.” He looks at Raskolnikov almost defiantly.

Raskolnikov swallows and, with interest, notes that Razumikhin’s gaze tracks the movement. “Okay,” he says. Then a thought occurs. “Wait, does that mean Dunya was in love with Sonya for all this time?”

“You would have to ask her,” Razumikhin tells him. A pause. “You seem very… level-headed about it all.”

“I spoke with Sonya,” Raskolnikov says. “We figured some things out.”

“You mean, she figured some things out.” Raskolnikov does not like the smirk creeping at the corner of Razumikhin’s lips. He wants to press it away.

That is an interesting thought.

“No,” he blurts after a long pause. Then, “Well, yes.” The smirk breaks into a fully fledged grin now and Raskolnikov’s pulse trips. His throat is dry all of a sudden and the silence between them buzzes in his ears. “She put it into words,” he continues finally. He can see the question on the tip of Razumikhin’s tongue. It is a question he does not want to answer right now, suddenly and desperately. Not until he has at least worked out what is going on. He says the first thing that comes to mind.

“So, does this mean you have not had sex in the past eight years?” The red that infuses the tips of Razumikhin’s ears fascinates Raskolnikov. He watches as he chokes on the sip of tea he has just taken.

“You—” he sputters. A smile stretches Raskolnikov’s features as Razumikhin struggles to find any words.

“Do not worry, Dmitry Prokofych,” he says, slyly. “I am sure we can find someone in this town for you.”

Razumikhin does not meet his eyes as he mumbles something. It sounds like “Would not be too hard,” but that cannot be right.

Unless.

Unless there is someone in town that Razumikhin likes already.

Raskolnikov resolutely ignores the way his stomach roils at the thought. This makes things interesting. Very interesting indeed.

*

Later, he recalls that he had wanted to find out what was wrong with Razumikhin in their conversation. But while they had managed to have one, Raskolnikov has come out of it no clearer about the problem than before. It is singularly frustrating.

But no matter. He has a new project now.

Find out who it is that Razumikhin likes. And then… and then he does not know what, but he is sure it will become clear.

First things first: he makes a list. It is a middling length list, filled with only those men of their age who are in the village still. Raskolnikov is relatively certain Razumikhin would not go for someone so much older than he. Which cuts his list down quite drastically, but not so much as he would like. There are, after all, quite a few men in the village, by dint of its being so nearby the prison. And Razumikhin might like any one of them.

So what Raskolnikov must do is narrow down the list to only a handful. This is easier said than done. Raskolnikov finds he does not know much about these men except their names. He does not know which of them is married, for example. And, since he does not want to be courting trouble, that might be pertinent information.

He will have to visit Ludmila Vasiliyevna, he decides. She knows everyone in the village and out, and will be able to advise him.

The only sticking point is what to tell her.

He cannot be wholly truthful, of course. Theirs is an unusual arrangement by any stretch of the imagination and an arrangement that he is aware few people would tolerate.

On second thoughts, then, perhaps he cannot yet ask Ludmila Vasiliyevna.

Back to the drawing board then.

A part of him wonders why exactly he is taking such an active interest in this. The other part of him quashes that thought before it can truly coalesce. He is doing it to help a friend, nothing more, nothing less.

It cannot be anything more.

*

“Sonya…” Raskolnikov is well aware his voice has taken on a distinctly wheedling tone. Sonya looks up from where she is stirring the pot of soup that has resided on the stove for the past few days.

“What is it you want, Rodya?” Her words seem harsh but are said with a sort of amusement borne of familiarity. Raskolnikov peers over his shoulder to make sure the door to Razumikhin’s study is closed.

“It is about Razumikhin,” he says, tone low so as not to be overheard. The walls of this house are thin, after all.

“Oh?” Sonya asks. He knows he has got her attention, because she puts down the spoon and turns to face him.

“There is someone in the village he likes,” Rodya explains. “And I want to find out who.”

“And you need my help because?”

“I have written out a list of those it might be, but I do not know half of these people!” Rodya cries. “I thought you might be able to tell me more about them.” Sonya looks at him with raised eyebrows, as if she is biting her tongue from speaking.

“Okay,” she says eventually. “Show me this list.” In silence, he hands it over. For a second, he wonders if Sonya knew about Razumikhin before she saw the list, but from the lack of surprise on her face, he realises that actually, he is the last to know.

Something crunches up in his chest.

“Do you have a pencil?” Sonya asks, startling him back into the present.

“Yes,” he says, patting his pockets almost feverishly, wanting that strange feeling beneath his sternum to dissipate. He extracts a pencil and hands it over, then watches as she crosses out most of the list.

“Uh… what are you doing?” he asks.

“Making it easier for you,” Sonya tells him, not looking up. “A lot of these men are married, and I can guarantee you that these others… Mitya would not look at them in that way.” Raskolnikov wants to ask why but before he can, she passes the list back with a slight smirk.

There are six names on it.

_Anatoly Danylovich Kuzmich_

_Vadim Artemovich Bragin_

_Ivan Maximovich Gorelov_

_Damir Mikhailovich Azarov_

_Fedir Olegovich Yerokhin_

_Kiril Sergeyevich Mitin_

“I do not know any of these men,” Raskolnikov says. He can hear the bewilderment in his own voice.

“They are all… ex-lodgers of Ludmila Vasiliyevna,” Sonya explains. “They were released before you went in. I think… I think Mitya befriended them to find out something about what it would be like for you.”

“Oh.” Raskolnikov does not know what to say to that. He had thought… he does not know what he had thought, but it was not this. It precipitates the return of that crunching feeling.

“If there is anyone Mitya likes in the village, it is most likely one of them,” Sonya continues with a shrug, as if she had not a care in the world about the outcome. Raskolnikov, however, can tell, from the way she is biting the inside of her mouth, that this is not true.

“These six,” he says, making a show of looking down at the list, watching her out of the corner of his eye. “And you cannot narrow it down further?” Her lips pinch, just slightly.

She knows.

“No, I cannot,” she tells him. “I am sure you can figure it out for yourself though.”

 _Fine,_ Raskolnikov thinks. _If that is how she is going to play it._

“I am sure I shall,” he says. “How do you feel about hosting a dinner party? Once Dunya has properly recovered, of course.”

“And would this dinner party involve anyone on your list, perchance?”

“Maybe one or two,” Raskolnikov shrugs. “I suppose we shall have to see.”

*

Dunya is attempting to get out of bed when Raskolnikov enters her room. She freezes, as if she knows that he will not approve of what she is doing, then her shoulders drop. “I just wanted some fresh air,” she says, bottom lip sticking out just enough that Raskolnikov knows she is sulking. “Rodya, I have been stuck in here for _days_.”

“Okay, okay,” Raskolnikov raises his hands. “But you know Sonya would worry…”

“So we will go quietly!” Dunya starts moving again, pushing back her covers. Raskolnikov hurries over to help. She tries to slap him away but, when she stumbles on standing, unsteady on her feet after so long, she gives in and lets him prop her upright.

“We shall take it slowly,” he warns. “The moment I catch you straining yourself, it will be back to bed.”

“Yes, mother,” Dunya grumbles, but she lets Raskolnikov support her as they make their way out of the room and down the stairs. To get out into the back garden, though, they have to pass by the kitchen, where Sonya is humming as she washes the floor.

Raskolnikov stops, just before the doorway, and Dunya almost bumps into him, breath hitching audibly. They freeze, but Sonya does not seem to have heard them. With an internal sigh of relief, he leads Dunya past, tiptoeing as quietly as possible.

Out in the garden, Raskolnikov can almost see the tension draining from Dunya’s body. She tips her face towards the weak sunlight breaking through the clouds. The grass and plants are wet with the rain that has intermittently passed through throughout the day, and earth smells of that dampness that follows. It is fresh and cool.

Raskolnikov takes a moment to thank whatever deity is listening that Dunya’s illness was nothing more than a bad cold. She looks pale and wobbly but, most importantly, she looks _alive_.

“What?” she asks, noticing him looking at her. He comes closer and pulls her into an embrace, feeling something loosen in his chest when her arms loop around his waist.

“I am sorry,” he says softly into her hair. “For before. For treating you as if you needed permission to do something, as if you were not an adult woman. I just worry, I suppose. I will always worry.”

She is quiet for what feels like a long moment. Then, finally, she whispers, “It is okay. I think I knew that is where it came from. I will not… I will not say it did not hurt, but I knew you were just worried, deep down. Besides, you know I am not afraid of calling you an overbearing idiot.” This startles a laugh from Raskolnikov.

“No,” he muses. “That you are not.”

“I am sorry I let it go on for so long,” Dunya says. “If I had just tried to speak with you…”

“You know me,” Raskolnikov tells her. “I very probably would not have listened. And then you would have called me an overbearing idiot again, and we would have been back at the start.”

He feels the expansion and retraction of her ribcage as she sighs. “We are both too stubborn,” she murmurs.

“Well, we know who we got that from.” She laughs and Raskolnikov, just for a moment, pulls her in tighter. They stand like that for a while longer.

“I think I would like to go back inside now,” Dunya mumbles eventually and then she yawns.

“Are you sure you are not just about to fall asleep out here?” Raskolnikov asks, amusement colouring his tone.

“If you are not careful, I just might,” she tells him, before pulling away and working herself upright. “Okay, I am ready.” She loops her arm through his and they set off back into the house.

Sonya is no longer in the kitchen, so they do not have to sneak past this time, but, as they are climbing up the stairs, Razumikhin exits his study. Both parties stand at an impasse. Razumikhin raises an eyebrow, questioningly.

“Do not tell Sonya,” Dunya pleads quietly. “I just wanted some air.”

“Tell Sonya what?” Razumikhin asks, a conspiratorial grin working its way across his mouth. Raskolnikov watches it, drawn, without thinking, to the tug of his lips, the indent of his teeth on the lower one.

He is shaken out of it as Dunya starts to pull him upstairs. She is giving him an odd look, as if she caught him in the act of… he does not quite know what.

It is not the first time he has looked at a man and felt something, far from it. But he has never looked at Razumikhin in this way. He might have, once, long ago and before they were friends. When he thought he would never see him beyond in passing. He might have done a little more than just look.

But then Razumikhin was out of bounds, both a friend and someone who would never himself consider men in that way.

Until he was not any longer.

That, however, is more than beside the point. Razumikhin likes someone in the village. One of those six men that Sonya pointed out for him. He does not — he cannot — like Raskolnikov. He must go back to being out of bounds.

“Are you alright?” Dunya asks, and Raskolnikov starts. They are in Dunya’s room, although Raskolnikov does not remember a single step of the way there.

“Yes,” he says hastily, releasing Dunya from his grasp. He is fairly certain he has been gripping her tightly, but she has not complained.

“Right,” she says, sceptically. She sits on the bed and pulls her feet up to curl underneath her. “So you were not just now pining for Mitya?”

“Why would I pine for Mit— Razumikhin?”

“I do not know. You tell me, since you were the one doing it.”

“I was not! I think I would know if I were.” Dunya lets out a small, sceptical-sounding huff. “I would!” Raskolnikov insists. “Besides how can I be pining for him when I am, in fact, in the middle of sorting out his own affairs for him?” The way Dunya presses her lips together so tightly, and so reminiscent of Sonya, says that she is trying her hardest not to speak a word.

Then her jaw cracks in a yawn. “Okay, time for you to get back into bed,” Raskolnikov tells her with a laugh. “You have worn yourself out.”

“ _You_ have worn me out,” Dunya protests. “With your sheer stupidity.” But she is pliant as he helps her under the covers and pulls them up over her.

“Of course, little sister,” he murmurs. Her brow crinkles as the epithet registers, but she is too sleepy to complain this time. He leans over and presses a kiss to that brow, listens to the quiet sigh that she releases.

He makes his way out of the room on tiptoes, closing the door behind him as softly as he can.

And comes face to face with Razumikhin.

He swallows down the squeak of surprise that threatens to burst from his lips, but he cannot hide the start Razumikhin’s presence gives him.

“I am sorry, Rodion Romanovich,” Razumikhin says, subdued so as not to wake Dunya, voice rumbling in a way that makes Raskolnikov itch to reach for him, mirth trickling into his tone.

 _Wait, what?_ He shoves the thought aside violently.

“No matter,” Raskolinkov says, his own voice high-pitched and cracking embarrassingly. He clears his throat. “I just did not expect you right there.”

“I can see.” The amusement has not left Razumikhin’s low baritone and Raskolnikov finds himself oddly satisfied of having put it there. Even if it did involve his slight humiliation. “How is Dunya?”

Raskolnikov is both desperately glad and unnervingly disappointed at the change in topic. “She is fine,” he says. “Just sleeping now. I think she was not quite as ready for the exertion as she believed herself to be.”

“Somehow,” Razumikhin says. “That does not surprise me.” A silence grows between them, expanding into something that Raskolnikov could not name. Something about the way Razumikhin is stood opposite him, only a foot or so distance between them, ignites a feeling in the pit of his stomach. Despite having stood across from the man many a time before, something about this time is different.

He could take a step across. He could close that distance.

“I had thought to ask her something,” Razumikhin says eventually and Raskolnikov jolts abruptly back into the present. “But if she is sleeping, it is not an urgent matter, anyway.”

“Relating to the accounts?” Raskolnikov asks. “She told me you had put both of your names on them.” Razumikhin huffs out something that might be called a laugh.

“I did,” he admits. “Though it brought me a few strange looks, to be sure. But no, this is not a question of the accounts, not really.”

“The business?” Razumikhin tilts his head to assess Raskolnikov. He feels a shiver run through him as he stands beneath his sharp gaze. Because it is beneath, for all that Raskolnikov has a good few inches on Razumikhin, has always had. Something about Razumikhin’s regard decimates those inches.

“Sort of.” Razumikhin shrugs. “Like I said, it is not of immediate importance.” He turns away, connection between them breaking, and Raskolnikov starts to wonder if he had just imagined the whole thing. “Shall we go downstairs? We do not want to disturb Dunya’s rest with our nattering.”

“Of course,” Raskolnikov says. “Lead the way.” He does not follow for a second, taking a moment to recover himself. His heart is hammering in his chest as if he had just run a mile as fast as he could.

At the bottom of the stairs, Razumikhin looks back up at him. “Are you coming?” he asks, head cocked and a smile creeping across his lips. Raskolnikov finds his throat dry.

“Yes,” he croaks. Then he swallows, repeats himself sounding, hopefully, more normal. “Yes.”

This situation could be significantly more awkward than he first thought.

*

Raskolnikov is halfway sure he _has_ met the men on Sonya’s list before. Halfway because, if he has, it was likely at the gathering following his release, when there were so many people, names went in one ear and out the other. If asked, he definitely could not pin these names to faces.

So, for the first proposed dinner party, he picks three names at random.

By now, Dunya is mostly recovered, although still a little lethargic and worn down in the evenings, and she has been… apprised of Raskolnikov’s plan by Sonya. Raskolnikov is not entirely sure what it is she has been told — whatever it is, it makes her smirk with infuriating regularity.

So. The dinner party.

He has invited Kuzmich, Gorelov and Yerokhin, sending them letters through Sonya, who is an unusually willing participant in his scheme. Or she seems to be, at least. She spends her time looking mostly as though she is massively amused by the whole enterprise.

But no matter. She does as he asks, and he can take being laughed at when he is filled with the righteous knowledge of doing a good deed for Razumikhin.

Not that Razumikhin is aware of the fact, but he shrugs that little detail off.

Just as he shrugs off the roiling sensation in the pit of his stomach whenever he thinks about Razumikhin with one of these faceless men. He is not so oblivious as to be unable to label the feeling, but just because he _could_ label it, does not mean he has to.

Besides, it is better for everyone if he does not.

So he plans the dinner party, down to the last detail. What to cook, where he will sit people (namely, where he will seat Razumikhin in relation to everyone else). None of it can come down to chance.

“Sonya,” he asks, in the kitchen one day, while Razumikhin is in his study and Dunya who knows where. “Do we have any vodka in the house?” It will not be much of a dinner party if it turns out they do not.

“If we do, it will be in that cupboard.” She points to a cupboard in the corner. Raskolnikov walks over and opens it. Inside is dark and full of cobwebs.

“Are you sure it is this cupboard?” he asks. “I do not believe anything has been in here for a good few years.”

“Oh,” Sonya says, coming over to look. “I could have sworn… but perhaps not. Maybe it is in the front room cupboards. I know Mitya has had it out a few times there. If we do not have any, I am sure you could go to Varvara Ivanovna’s shop and find some.”

Frankly, Raskolnikov would rather face down a rabid bear than Varvara Ivanovna.

He trails Sonya into the front room, where she opens up every cupboard she can find in search of the bottles. Finally, in the last one they try, tucked into a corner, they locate Razumikhin’s stash.

“Oh, thank God,” Raskolnikov exhales in relief.

“You were really that scared of going to see Varvara Ivanovna?” Sonya asks in amusement.

“I was not scared!” Raskolnikov exclaims. “Merely… glad to miss out on the usual refrain of ‘why has Sofya Semyonovna left you to do this for yourself, a good wife would never do such a thing’, while she makes doe eyes at me.” He shudders.

“She is aware you have a wife, right?” Sonya says. “And that you are, ostensibly, a faithful husband.”

“Would that my wife be equally so,” he replies, grasping at his chest and looking to the ceiling, as if in lament.

“Oh, knock it off,” Sonya laughs. “Besides, you have Mitya.” It is like Raskolnikov’s brain comes screeching to a sudden halt.

“I… have Razumikhin?” he asks.

Sonya looks as though she has said something she ought not. “Oh, you know,” she waves a hand. “I mean to say you are not alone in it, you and he can commiserate over a drink or two, if you felt so inclined.”

“Right,” Raskolnikov says hastily. “Right, of course.”

“Commiserate over what?”

 _Speak of the devil and he shall appear,_ Raskolnikov thinks, sounding almost hysterical even to himself.

“Merely the infidelity of your wives,” Sonya says so sweetly that Raskolnikov laughs.

“Ah,” Razumikhin nods sagely. His eyes spark with mirth, though his face is perfectly still and serious.

Not that Raskolnikov notices this particularly.

“There is much there to commiserate over, to be sure,” Razumikhin continues. “Particularly how Rodion Romanovich here seems to have been evicted from his own bedroom.”

“Oh no,” Sonya says, completely without remorse. “Whatever will he do?”

“Perhaps I will waste away,” Raskolnikov says solemnly. “And then, when I am but skin and bone, you will be sorry for it.”

“I will believe it when I see it,” Sonya tells him.

“Oh, no, do not say that,” Razumikhin cries. “He will just take it as a challenge.”

“Vile calumny and slander!” Raskolnikov exclaims. It is not, but he will take whatever if only they keep teasing him like this. There is something about it that reminds him he has found a home.

“Remember Galenka?” Sonya says, placing her hands on her hips. “If that was not you assuming a needless challenge, then I do not know what is.” Galenka, hearing her name, chirrups from where she is sat on the sofa.

“It was a matter of honour!” Raskolnikov insists. “I simply could not let my sister’s insults stand.”

“Very honourable of you, I am sure,” Razumikhin murmurs. Raskolnikov finds himself ever so slightly stuck in the way the corners of Razumikhin’s lips tilt upwards.

“Has Rodya told you of his dinner party, Mitya?” he hears Sonya ask, voice all sweetness and light and sugary betrayal.

“I had not, yet,” he says hastily, before Sonya can say any more. “But consider this your notice. It is planned for a week on Thursday.”

“Notice considered,” Razumikhin tells him. “I shall be excited to see what you have in store.”

 _Oh,_ Raskolnikov thinks. _If only he knew._

*

The day of Raskolnikov’s dinner party dawns with little fanfare. Bright sunlight streams in through the window of Raskolnikov’s room — formerly Dunya’s — waking him. He groans and rolls over, before remembering that today is the day that his plan is implemented. He allows himself a good minute of smugness at the thought of it all coming together, and then he gets up.

He hums a tune as he washes and dresses, half remembered from his childhood, but one that seems strangely apt for the day ahead. It continues to echo in his ears as he heads down to the kitchen.

It is empty — strange for this time of the morning — but Raskolnikov assumes that Sonya and Dunya must be lying in. He does not know where Razumikhin, the earliest riser of them all, might be. He pours himself a glass of tea and goes to stand by the window.

From it, he has a half view of the back garden and the vegetable patch which they hardly seem to tend to. A movement catches his eye and he looks to see Razumikhin, shirt sleeves rolled up, leaning down to tug up some weeds. Almost as though he can feel Raskolnikov’s gaze on him, he glances up and gives a wave.

It is only polite, therefore, that Raskolnikov go outside too.

“Good morning,” Razumikhin calls as he sees him stepping out into the garden. “You are up early.”

“I suppose I am,” Raskolnikov muses. In truth, he had not even considered the time, so enthused he was by the day ahead. “As are you.”

“I am not wholly sure I slept, actually,” Razumikhin says it with such benign cheerfulness, as if it is just another night, that Raskolnikov can feel the look of horror that crawls across his face.

“Oh no,” he says. “What are you doing? You must sleep!”

“I am sure I will,” Razumikhin shrugs. “At some point.”

“I think you may be a little delirious,” Raskolnikov says worriedly. “That is not a particularly comforting response.”

“I will be right as rain for your dinner party, you need not worry,” Razumikhin tries to wave him off.

“I am not concerned for _that_ ,” Raskolnikov tells him. “I am concerned for _you_.”

This appears to stop Razumikhin in his tracks somewhat. He rises from where he had been crouched down, running damp earth through his fingers and stands, head cocked to one side, watching Raskolnikov.

“Come,” Raskolnikov says, first handing Razumikhin his glass of tea, and then taking him by the elbow to lead him back into the house, the heat of his bare skin burning a brand into Raskolnikov’s fingertips. “I am sending you to bed.”

He is fairly sure that Razumikhin acquiesces only because he is too taken aback to do otherwise. That is the only explanation for how easily he gets him upstairs, and how quietly he nods when Raskolnikov tells him he does not want to see him awake again until at least lunchtime.

And then he heads back down, fingers rubbing together absently, still tingling from where they had made contact with Razumikhin’s skin. He has a lot to prepare for his night to be a success.

*

The first guests begin to arrive from four o’clock. Sonya had convinced Raskolnikov that they ought to invite more people than just those three men alone, so also coming are some of the men that Raskolnikov befriended in prison, and their wives.

It is a little larger gathering than Raskolnikov had first envisaged, but no matter. He has been cooking all day — despite Dunya’s claims, he is able to cook, and cook well — and every surface is covered with platters.

There is also plenty of vodka, thanks to his raid on Razumikhin’s stash.

As the room starts to fill, he presses up onto his tiptoes, trying to spot both Razumikhin and the three men he invited in particular. He does not know what they look like, not remembering meeting them, so he is somewhat stuck just watching Razumikhin in the hopes he might offer up a clue.

“Do you want me to point them out?” Sonya says from behind him, and he jumps.

“Do not sneak up on me like that!” he yelps.

“That is not an answer to my question.”

“Fine, fine,” he relents. “Please point them out to me.” Sonya leans in over his shoulder.

“That man next to Sidorov, he is Kuzmich.” The man she indicates is tall — not so tall as Raskolnikov, but taller than Razumikhin — with dark hair and a chin that juts out like a promontory. Privately, Raskolnikov thinks him rather ugly.

“Gorelov and Yerokhin are stood with Mitya right now,” Sonya continues. “Gorelov is the one wearing the red waistcoat.”

“You mean the one that looks the colour of blood?” Raskolnikov mutters. He could not say why, but he feels in a sour mood all of a sudden.

“That very one.”

Gorelov is blond, a short and stout man, who does not entirely suit the waistcoat he has opted to wear tonight. Yerokhin, placed next to him, looks almost his opposite, tall and lanky with dark hair and grumpy features.

How Razumikhin might like any of these men is totally beyond Raskolnikov, but there is no accounting for taste, he supposes.

“Thank you,” he says after a moment.

He hates every one of these men on sight.

It is almost as though Sonya can tell his mood has worsened, because she places a hand on his shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze.

“Trust me,” she murmurs. “It will be fine.”

“I do not know what you mean,” Raskolnikov says with a sniff, but he cannot fool her. She has known him too long and too well not to be able to tell when he is lying.

He is still gazing at Razumikhin across the crowd as he says this and, at that moment, Razumikhin looks over to him and catches his eye. A wide smile spreads across his face, and he gestures for Raskolnikov to come over. Unable to refuse, Raskolnikov does.

Up close, Gorelov’s waistcoat is even more horrifying. From so far away, Raskolnikov had been unable to see the faux gold accents of it, and the pearl buttons. His eyes are drawn helplessly to the monstrosity.

Gorelov notices him looking at it, and takes his horrified fixation as a sign of appreciation. “I see you are admiring my waistcoat, my dear sir,” he says. “I had it custom made and sent all the way from Moscow.”

“It is…” Raskolnikov starts. He clears his throat and swallows. “It is truly something.” He makes the mistake now of glancing up and catching Razumikhin’s eye. He is obviously trying his hardest not to laugh, watching Raskolnikov flounder. Well, Raskolnikov is not having that. “Do you not think so, Dmitry Prokofych?” he asks, in the lightest tone he can produce.

Razumikhin’s eyes narrow, just slightly, but enough that Raskolnikov spots it. He smirks, pointedly.

“Quite so,” Razumikhin says. His gaze is latched tightly on Raskolnikov’s. “I have never seen the like.”

“Yes,” Gorelov says, visibly preening at the attention. “It is made from the most expensive silk and the accents are threaded with real gold.”

Now, Raskolnikov is no expert, but he would say Gorelov has been sold a dummy. The material is quite clearly not silk and he highly doubts any real gold ever came within six feet of the creation. But he nods as if he agrees, trying to fit a suitably awed expression on his face.

“It is truly a most amazing design.” Razumikhin’s eyebrows raise. He knows Raskolnikov is lying and Raskolnikov knows he knows.

“You must be the envy of the town,” he lies in turn. His eyes spark as though daring Raskolnikov to come up with an even greater untruth. Raskolnikov’s tongue flicks out across his lips. Razumikhin’s eyes track it.

“Well, I say it is rather ugly, I am afraid,” Yerokhin interrupts. Raskolnikov jerks back from where he has been tilting towards Razumikhin, like a sunflower to sunlight.

“There is no accounting for taste,” Gorelov sniffs, in an odd echo of Raskolnikov’s own thoughts, not five minutes previous.

“Truly not,” Yerokhin responds dryly. Raskolnikov thinks he might actually quite like Yerokhin after all.

Gorelov huffs and mutters something about finding some refreshments, turning to leave. Yerokhin bids him farewell in a slightly mocking tone. “He is somewhat touchy,” he confides in Raskolnikov. “It is not he who commissioned the waistcoat, you see. It was his betrothed.”

“His betrothed?” Razumikhin asks, leaning in. “I had not heard!”

“Ah, she is back in Moscow, that is why,” Yerokhin leans in too, so all three of them are angled towards one another. “They met — I say met for want of a better word — when she started writing to him in prison. Now they are promised to one another and Gorelov plans to travel back to Moscow any day now.”

“What has this to do with the waistcoat?” Raskolnikov asks, curious despite himself. He glances quickly at Razumikhin to see how he is taking the news, but he seems blithely unconcerned.

Strike one against Gorelov, then.

“Oh, he cannot countenance the slightest suggestion that his wife-to-be has anything other than the most perfect taste,” Yerokhin shrugs. “Personally, I think he is compensating for the fact that he too was horrified by the gift at first.”

“It is rather garish,” Razumikhin murmurs.

“I knew you could not be serious in praising it!” Yerokhin cries lowly. Razumikhin gives a small noise of disgust.

“I cannot believe you would even doubt it, Fedir Olegovich! Do you think so little of me?”

“Ah ah, enough of this fake outrage, Dmitry Prokofych,” Yerokhin tells him. “I will not suffer your teasing tonight.”

“Teasing!” Razumikhin scoffs.

“I am sure Rodion Romanovich will concur,” Yerokhin says, turning to Raskolnikov.

“I do,” Raskolnikov nods solemnly. “As one who suffers through it every day, and has done for the past decade—”

“You were not even _here_ for eight years of that decade,” Razumikhin tells him. “And now who is teasing?” Yerokhin laughs.

“Forgive us, Dmitry Prokofych.” Razumikhin pretends to think for a moment, which makes Yerokhin laugh even harder.

Raskolnikov decides that he takes back what he said about liking the man.

“Besides,” Yerokhin continues. “You will not have to suffer me for so much longer.”

“Oh?” Razumikhin asks.

“I am headed west to seek gainful employment once again. It is all very well staying out here when you are alone, but I have my sister and my son to return to.” Once again, Raskolnikov finds himself glancing over to Razumikhin. Once again, Razumikhin’s face reveals not the slightest.

“They wrote you?”

“Yes,” Yerokhin says. “Can you believe? My son has convinced my sister to relent in her apostasy. He wrote me not one week ago to say so.”

“My friend, I could not be happier for you.”

Raskolnikov knows Razumikhin’s voice when he is lying. He has heard it often enough himself. Which is to say, he knows he is not lying at all right now. He is wholly genuine in his happiness.

And that makes this a strike against Yerokhin too.

For the first time, Raskolnikov starts to think that this plan may not be so simple as he initially envisaged. But no matter. There are still four more people to get through, one of which is here. If anything, the fact that he can rule two out so quickly is a positive.

He taps Razumikhin’s elbow and indicates that he is going to get something to eat himself. Razumikhin nods, once, briefly, before letting Yerokhin draw him back into their conversation. Raskolnikov wonders just how he is going to extract him when the time comes. He cannot let the evening go by without somehow contriving to have Razumikhin and Kuzmich come together.

He is musing on this when the man himself approaches. “Ah!” Kuzmich cries, vast and expansive in his gestures. “Just the man I was hoping to find.”

“Oh?” Raskolnikov enquires politely.

“Yes, yes,” Kuzmich drapes an arm over Raskolnikov’s shoulders, heedless of the breach in propriety and the way Raskolnikov’s shoulders tense. Involuntarily, he glances over towards Razumikhin and Yerokhin.

As though feeling his gaze, Razumikhin looks over. His face clouds and Raskolnikov has a moment to wonder why, before his attention is captured once again by Kuzmich. The man leans towards him, breath hot and sour, a nasty smirk on his face. Raskolnikov feels abruptly that he has erred in inviting him here.

“I could not help but notice,” Kuzmich starts, tone low and sinister, “just how beautiful your lady wife is.”

 _Oh no,_ Raskolnikov thinks hysterically. He has done more than merely err.

“Kuzmich,” Razumikhin breaks in, face thunderous. Kuzmich pulls away from Raskolnikov and turns to face Razumikhin, an ugly sneer painted across his features.

“Well, the white knight cometh,” he says scornfully. Razumikhin does not react. His countenance is stony and unreadable.

“You are not welcome here,” he says quietly, implacably.

“Au contraire,” Kuzmich smirks. “I was _invited._ ”

“And now I am uninviting you. Get out.”

Raskolnikov has never seen Razumikhin quite like this. He does not know what to make of it. So instead he watches as Kuzmich’s expression grows ever uglier.

“You do not want to cross me,” he threatens, raising a hand and pointing his finger right in Razumikhin’s face. Razumikhin does not so much as blink.

“You are forgetting where exactly we are,” he says, still quiet. “One word from me, and you will be right back in it.”

This must be an effective threat, because Kuzmich goes pale. A muscle works in his jaw, but he does not say a word as he spins on his heel and stalks out. A moment later, the door slams.

Razumikhin slumps, as if all the tension has been released from his body and he no longer has the energy to even stand. “I am sorry you had to see that,” he murmurs, looking up at Raskolnikov through his eyelashes.

“It is—” Raskolnikov starts, then cuts himself off. “I was the one who invited him. I should be the one apologising now.”

“You could not have known,” Razumikhin reassures him. “After all, I chose not to tell anyone about him.”

“What did he do?” Raskolnikov asks, curious despite himself. “Sonya seemed under the impression that you were friendly.”

“Oh, maybe once,” Razumikhin says. “And then I got to know him.” He gives a wry smile. “I was searching for any form of comfort in knowing what you were going through inside. I did not notice quite how odious a man he was until too late.” He pauses and looks away as though ashamed. “He asked if I would not mind ‘sharing Dunya’, as he put it. I have no doubt that he was about to ask the same of you regarding Sonya just now.”

Raskolnikov feels his face crumple in disgust. “Oh,” he says. Then, “Well, I am forever in your debt for rescuing me from that fate.”

Razumikhin looks startled. Raskolnikov can only assume he was expecting him to be angered by his actions, possibly even by his attempted friendship with the man.

“You are… you are serious?”

“Of course! Come now, Dmitry Prokofych, I could hardly blame you for assuming the best of someone.”

“I suppose.” He still appears sceptical, but Raskolnikov is happy to take his words at face value.

“Come,” he says, resting his hand on Razumikhin’s arm, just briefly. “Let us rejoin the party.”

*

On the whole, Raskolnikov thinks that the dinner party went well. Not, obviously, in the sense of having gained some clarity regarding Razumikhin’s feelings, but, Kuzmich aside, the venture was a success. Alright, so he is forced to slightly adjust his plan, but it really was unreasonably optimistic of him to believe he would be able to select the right man straightaway.

It is a good thing that he is well-versed in adaptation. By the end of the evening, he had already come up with a new tactic. Sonya had mentioned in passing that one Vadim Artemovich Bragin was one to find enjoyment walking through the fields, particularly those which their own house backed onto.

Thus, Raskolnikov thinks, it should not be too hard to contrive to meet him.

At first, he decides to go for a few walks himself, to try ascertain whether Bragin has any sort of pattern. That this is very similar to how he behaved back in St. Petersburg, before everything, does not worry him unduly. After all, it is for a wholly different — and good — reason that he does this.

It takes him a good three weeks to work it out. Three weeks and a fair number of comments from the rest of the household. “I have never seen you spend so much time outside,” Dunya remarks to him.

But, on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, Raskolnikov sets his plan in motion.

“Come on a walk with me,” he says, entering Razumikhin’s study. The man in question jolts upright from where he had laid his head on the desk. He blinks blearily.

“Why?” he asks, and Raskolnikov can hear the sleep in his voice.

“Because it will wake you up, that is why. Have you not been sleeping again?”

“Maybe?” The question in Razumikhin’s voice confirms Raskolnikov’s suspicions.

“The fresh air will do you good,” he insists. Razumikhin allows himself to be wrangled, out of the study and out of the house, until Raskolnikov is leading him into the fields where, with luck on their side, they will meet Bragin.

And once they have met Bragin? Well, all he needs to do is wait a little while before making his excuses to go back home.

 _What could possibly go wrong?_ he thinks.

Of course, that almost certainly jinxes the entire operation. As they wander through the fields, Raskolnikov is trying, surreptitiously, to look around and spot Bragin, but the man is not showing his face. The one day that Raskolnikov needs him to follow his routine and he does not.

“Are you alright, Rodion Romanovich?” Razumikhin asks. Raskolnikov is forced to turn back to him and hope that Bragin appears sooner rather than later.

He is starting to lose that hope when he finally does, walking across the field, but he is not alone. There is a woman on his arm, one who is laughing gaily at whatever it is Bragin has said.

“Oh, look!” Raskolnikov says, forcing a smile (a grimace) onto his face. “It is Bragin.”

“I did not know you knew Vadim Artemovich,” Razumikhin says, giving him an odd look.

“Ah,” Raskolnikov starts, but he is thankfully interrupted in his attempt to dissemble by the man himself.

“Dmitry Prokofych!” he shouts. “Hoy, Dmitry Prokofych.” Razumikhin raises a hand in acknowledgement and, with one last glance at Raskolnikov, adjusts his direction to take him over to the couple.

“Vadim Artemovich,” he says warmly as he approaches. “How good to see you.”

“And you, and you.” He takes Razumikhin’s hand in his grasp and gives it a hearty shake. “Might I introduce you to my wife, Natalia Valentinovna.”

“It is a pleasure, madam.”

Once again, Raskolnikov is stymied. Razumikhin shows nothing beyond his usual politeness, his usual countenance. What is more, this man whom Sonya had claimed was unmarried, is in fact married.

Sonya must have lied to him, he decides. Sent him on this wild goose chase for fun, so she could laugh at him. He is further convinced that she knows truly who Razumikhin likes and merely chooses not to tell him.

He is shaken from his thoughts by the sound of Razumikhin bidding farewell to the couple. He looks up just in time to give a hasty nod of goodbye, before they are walking onwards. The two of them are quiet for a long while, each lost in their thoughts. Raskolnikov is wondering whether it is viable to use this same tactic to meet the other two members of his list, when Razumikhin breaks the silence.

“I know what it is you are doing,” he accuses, coming to a halt and turning to face Raskolnikov, hands on hips. “You are trying to set me up.”

“Me? No, never!” The look on Razumikhin’s face says that he is not at all convinced by this denial. “Whyever would I do that?”

“Do not try to kid me, Rodion Romanovich,” Razumikhin tells him.

 _Oh,_ Raskolnikov thinks. _He is entirely serious._ He swallows.

“Okay,” he says. “I may have been trying something along those lines.”

“I see.” Razumikhin’s voice is so flat, his face so unmoving, that Raskolnikov realises that he has no idea how he feels right in this moment. It is an unnerving prospect because Razumikhin is so often an open book to him.

“I merely wished to help you out,” he tries. “You seemed so unhappy—”

“So you did it out of pity,” Razumikhin interrupts. Now his tone is not flat. Instead, it is filled with barely leashed fury.

“No, no, I do not mean that,” Raskolnikov hastens to correct him. “I just thought…”

“You did not think,” Razumikhin snaps. “You wanted to mess around with someone else’s life once again, and I was the target.” This is an unfair assumption on Razumikhin’s part and Raskolnikov tells him as such.

“You are mistaken!” he says, voice rising into a half shout. “I wanted you to be happy!”

“I am happy enough as is! I do not need your interference in that!”

“Dmitry Prokofych, you hardly sleep! You never tell me what is wrong, and you go out of your way to avoid talking about anything anymore. You cannot tell me you are _happy_.”

“And who are you to tell me what happiness looks like?” Raskolnikov cannot respond to that because it is true. Who _is_ he to force his own definition of happiness onto Razumikhin? “This is the end of it,” Razumikhin continues. “Do you understand? I have had enough of your machinations.”

There is a moment, just before he leaves, in which Raskolnikov thinks that, if he could only find the perfect words, he might convince him to stay. Instead, he watches the heavy rise and fall of his chest, then his back as he recedes into the distance.

*

Razumikhin’s refusal to even look at him after that seems to Raskolnikov akin to losing a limb. He does not think he has ever seen him so angry. He cannot even consider apologising because he cannot get close to do so — every time he enters a room, Razumikhin leaves.

“What did you _do_?” Sonya hisses to him, after the fifth or so instance of this.

“I do not know,” Raskolnikov tells her. It both is and is not a lie. He does know what he did; he does not know why Razumikhin took it so badly.

He knows he is moping about the house like a kicked puppy because of it, but he cannot help himself. He misses Razumikhin so savagely, so completely, that he cannot think straight.

“You look like you have been rejected,” Dunya says dryly, a week after the argument. Raskolnikov is only half paying attention, ears pricked for the slightest sound of movement emanating from Razumikhin’s study.

“Do you know what he is doing in there?” he asks mournfully. Dunya gives him an odd look, but takes pity.

“He is looking into moving back to St. Petersburg,” she says. Raskolnikov feels like he has been sliced open and his organs carved out.

“Back?” he asks hoarsely. “Just him?”

Dunya hesitates. “I do not know.”

When Raskolnikov considers the possibility, he despises it. He could not think of life without Razumikhin at this point. They have been through thick and thin together. If Raskolnikov lost him, he would also lose himself.

The thought of Raskolnikov without Razumikhin makes his hands shake. The future becomes a yawning, dreaded maw. He can get through Razumikhin’s silence — it is suddenly a less horrifying prospect — if only Razumikhin does not _leave_.

He looks down at the table and sees that his hands are shaking. “Rodya, are you quite alright?” Dunya asks. He glances up.

Something in his face must make it plain that he is not because she comes and sits down beside him.

“I cannot lose him,” Raskolnikov whispers.

“You will not,” Dunya tells him firmly. “I know it.”

“How can you tell? You have seen how he refuses to even be around me right now.” Dunya sighs and places her hand atop Raskolnikov’s own.

“Because I know him.” She pauses, seeming to think about something. “And besides, you mean more to him than you are aware.” She looks at him intently and Raskolnikov gets the distinct feeling that he is supposed to pick up some subtext from this.

And then it clicks.

“Oh,” he says. “ _Oh_.”

“Yes,” Dunya says. “But please do not tell him I told you. I only did so because I thought…” She frowns a little.

“You thought what?” Raskolnikov asks.

“That you might feel the same…”

“But I do no—” Raskolnikov cuts himself off.

It would have been a lie to say he does not, he realises. He did not know it for such before now, but it slots right into place. It is as if a hole has been filled within him, a hole the existence of which had been obscured to him up until this point.

He loves Razumikhin.

He loves Razumikhin with an intensity that burns. That is the reason for the sickening feeling whenever he has tried to set him up. That is the reason he cannot even consider his leaving without wanting to throw up.

“Oh, God,” he mumbles.

He spent this whole time, throwing men Razumikhin’s way, unaware of either of their true feelings. It is an unmitigated disaster.

“What do I do?” he all but wails. Dunya mutters something that distinctly sounds like “was I this bad”, but Raskolnikov elects to ignore her.

The prospect of going to Razumikhin, of confessing to him and being rejected because he has caused too much hurt, makes him feel physically ill. His hands start to shake again and his brow beads with sweat.

“Sonya,” he hears Dunya murmur. A cool hand lands on his forehead.

“You will be fine,” Sonya reassures him. “I promise you.” And Raskolnikov believes her. Inexplicably, perhaps, but he trusted her in St. Petersburg and he trusts her now.

He stands.

The walk down the hallway to Razumikhin’s study seems interminably long. He tries to find the words to use as he goes, but gets stuck beyond opening with an apology. He must open with an apology.

And then he is there, in front of the door. He takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself.

He bursts into Razumikhin’s study.

Razumikhin looks up, dropping his papers to the desk. “Do not go to St. Petersburg!” Raskolnikov blurts out.

Alright, so that is not quite how he meant to lead into it.

“I… am not?” Razumikhin seems to have been confused into talking with him. Not exactly how Raskolnikov intended it to go, but he will take it.

“Dunya said you had planned to.”

“I was thinking on it, that we all might move back there someday.” That takes the wind out of Raskolnikov’s sails somewhat.

“Oh,” he says, finding himself at a loss for words.

“Was there anything more you wanted?” Razumikhin asks and Raskolnikov can see the shuttering of his eyes as he gets the better of his shock.

“Yes,” he says, hastily, before he loses this chance. “Yes.” He takes another deep breath. “I wanted to apologise. For having hurt you.” Razumikhin does not look at him. Raskolnikov can tell this is not going to be easy. He never really expected it to be. “You see,” he continues, lacing his fingers together and tugging at them. “I did, at first, think I was doing it to see you happy. Because I wanted you to have someone. And I truly believed it was one of those men.”

“But you no longer believe that?” Razumikhin asks. Raskolnikov has to be careful here, he knows. He is balanced on a tightrope between the truth and perhaps implying that he did everything out of a misplaced sense of pity.

“Well, I hope it is not one of them,” he says with a weak smile.

It is as though the world stops in that moment. Razumikhin is so still he could almost be a statue. Raskolnikov himself is not much better.

“You see,” he continues eventually. “I have come to the realisation that I am somewhat devastatingly in love with you. And you being in love with one of those men would be more than a little inconvenient.”

The silence roars in his ears.

“Say that again,” Razumikhin whispers.

“I am in love with you.” He swallows. “And I am so sorry for the hurt I caused you.” Razumikhin nods ever so slightly.

“I think,” he says quietly, “I think the only reason I was so hurt was because I loved you.”

“Loved?” Raskolnikov can hear the shake of his voice in the word.

“Love.”

Raskolnikov has already been all but told as such by Dunya but he still sucks in a sharp breath on hearing Razumikhin say it. His heart wells with hope.

“And I… I thought at first that you were trying to set me up with those men because you pitied me. Or because—” He breaks off. Looks away, looks back almost defiantly. “Because maybe you knew how I felt and you were mocking me.”

“I would not,” Raskolnikov says fiercely.

“No, I know,” Razumikhin smiles self-deprecatingly. “I only thought as such at the worst moment.”

“I am sorry,” Raskolnikov repeats, helplessly. Then, he takes a step closer to Razumikhin. And another. And another, until he is stood right in front of him. Razumikhin’s head tilts up to meet his gaze.

“What are you going to do now?” he asks, half plea, half challenge. Raskolnikov licks his lips. Razumikhin’s eyes track the movement. This time, instead of shoving aside the feeling of pleasure that washes over him, Raskolnikov revels in it.

“I do not know, exactly,” he says, placing a finger on his chin, as if in deep thought. Razumikhin’s eyes flash. “I had not got much further than convincing you to stay.”

“Consider me convinced,” Razumikhin tells him, voice low and rumbling. “And I might have a few ideas on that front.”

He threads his fingers through Raskolnikov’s hair and pulls his head downwards. Raskolnikov goes willingly until, right at the last second, he leans back slightly. “Mitya!” he gasps, in false horror. “Not before we are married!”

Mitya — for Raskolnikov can think of him as Razumikhin no longer — growls something indecipherable and, up on his tiptoes, presses his mouth insistently to Raskolnikov’s own. “You think you are so funny,” he mumbles.

Raskolnikov says nothing in response, too distracted by the push and pull of the kiss, the way his leg slots between Mitya’s own. He is hyper aware of every point at which their bodies touch. His hands land on Mitya’s hips and he shoves him up onto the desk, pushing aside papers.

“Are you finished in there?” The shout comes from outside the door and they jolt apart. Raskolnikov takes an inordinate amount of satisfaction in the way Mitya is breathing heavily, eyes wide and pupils blown.

“No, we are not!” he yells back and leans in once again to smother the laugh bursting out of Mitya’s mouth.

*

Two days later, Raskolnikov returns home from a walk to loud laughter echoing through the house. He shrugs off his coat and makes his way to the kitchen, where he pauses in the doorway to drink in the scene before him.

Mitya, Sonya and Dunya are all sat around the table, each cupping a glass of tea, a steaming warm loaf of bread in between them.

“So you finally had success,” he says. Mitya glances up at him and the smile that spreads across his face is a wonder to behold.

“Oh, no,” he says ruefully. “This is Sonya’s creation.” Raskolnikov pushes off from the doorframe and makes his way over. He settles his hands on Mitya’s shoulders, revelling in the way Mitya relaxes into him, and leans down to press a kiss into his hair.

“You will get it someday,” he murmurs. “You have all the time in the world for it.”

**Author's Note:**

> shri (@sunshinejock on twitter) bullied me into this, just saying.
> 
> beta read by anna (@heresthepencil).
> 
> any mistakes remaining are mine.


End file.
